Stormfall
by Le'letha
Summary: Once upon a time, a baby named Hiccup was taken from Berk and raised entirely as a dragon. Twenty years later, he and Toothless brought war to the Queen of the Nest and peace to Berk ["Nightfall"]. …None of this matters to Drago Bludvist.
1. Chapter 1

_**Stormfall**_

 _ **Le'letha**_

 **Summary:** Once upon a time, a baby named Hiccup was taken from Berk and raised entirely as a dragon. Twenty years later, he and Toothless brought war to the Queen of the Nest and peace to Berk ["Nightfall"]. …None of this matters to Drago Bludvist.

 **Author's Note:** Hi guys. Welcome back. Buckle up. Here goes… This is finally the sequel to my "Nightfall", and it will make a lot more sense if you've read that first. If you haven't, the above summary should give you the basics, but you'll enjoy it a lot more with "Nightfall" under your belt.

 **Rating/Warning:** This one is a whole lot darker than "Nightfall". Rating has been raised to T/PG-13 accordingly for the disturbing mind and equally disturbing world of Drago Bludvist.

* * *

 _ **Stormfall,**_ **Part One**

His father had believed that this part of the world was cursed, and, looking out over it, Eret is starting to believe those stories himself.

He had started to regret coming here the moment he'd set their course this way, when his helmsman and navigator – an old friend of his father's, at that, who had heard all the stories a hundred times over as well – looked at him with a sense of mild betrayal on the elder Eret's behalf. The feeling has only gotten worse since, building up over the years from mild reluctance into fully-fledged hatred.

The place is _wrong_.

Unsettled, Eret heads outside from the thrown-together hut he's claimed as his ever since they put this most recent fort together. The last one had burned down one night, and no one had ever figured out why. He still thinks someone had had a private cook-fire going, or had fallen asleep with firewood stacked too close to the hearth. It had been a cold night, and the blaze had at least been pleasant while it lasted, although the next morning had been one of the worst Eret had ever had.

Outside the sky is getting dark, which it does quickly this far north. They're in the lee of the cliff, protected from the worst of the winds, but the clouds above are skidding past like they have somewhere to be. Not so with his men, who are scattered around the encampment digging in for the night. Inside the stables they'd slapped together to hold the dragon-proof cages, he can see Norge, wrapped up enough to be almost anonymous while he feeds their captives, tossing out fish from a bucket onto cage floors for the chained and muzzled dragons to eat as best they can. Only a fool leaves a captive dragon unmuzzled, Eret firmly believes. Most of them are fire-breathers, all of them bite, and it cuts down on the racket they cause, yelping and screaming and snarling in outrage and hunger.

As far as they can tell, there's no one else living on this ugly little spit of land, but Eret has posted guards anyway, looking out over the ocean and across their bit of island from platforms built into the log wall that encloses their camp. It's not unheard of for trappers to prey on each other, stealing catches from rivals to profit from the work of others, and besides, they're due to rendezvous with the fleet quite soon, feeding the beast to keep it at bay for just a little longer. Eret strolls across the stretch of dirt and gravel that forms the courtyard of their base, listening to the familiar voices, until he's within striking distance of one such guard platform.

A discarded scatter of small bones crackles underfoot as he nears it, and he reaches down to pick one up. Tossing it in his hand, he takes aim and throws in earnest.

"Keep it together up there!" he shouts in response to the aggrieved yelp of a man who has just been unexpectedly hit in the ear with a chicken bone. "Play on your own time! If the fleet comes to us, I don't want to be caught off guard."

He waits until he can hear the sound of a pebble game being hurriedly packed away and a flurry of "Yes, sir!" acknowledgements before moving on.

Quite what he expects to attack them from the land, he's not sure. There's no one else on this island because no one else would want it. Some long-ago scorching rendered it a wasteland, and the rains and snows have kept it a dismal, forgotten land, a sad little outpost for people living on the edge and scraping by.

Quite why anyone would want _anything_ this far north, Eret still isn't sure. His people may have come from around here originally, but from what he's seen of it, he's convinced that his great-grandmother was right to take them south and his father was entirely justified in keeping them there. For three bits of hack-silver, he'd give it all back to the dragons and the ghosts. But that wouldn't buy any of them their freedom, or their lives, except for a very short, very free drop into very cold water.

Pretending it wasn't out of desperation – not fear, never fear, there is nothing in this world that Eret, son of Eret, veteran dragon trapper, experienced dragon wrangler, captain of his own ship, responsible for the lives and welfare of his men, _fears_ , he swears – he had told himself that he was calling his father's bluff. There were no demon dragons lurking in this corner of the world, waiting to finish the job one had started all those years ago and burn people named Eret to bloody ashes. There were no monsters, no ghosts, no vengeful spirits of forgotten gods, and he was not only going to prove it but profit by it.

To his crew he had presented the decision as an opportunity. An untapped range, an ocean expanse abandoned by the loose association of clans long ago, even by that slick bastard Grimborn. Surely by now the far northern skies would be full of dragons heavy on the wing and unwary, lulled into a false sense of security by the time the guild had spent hunting elsewhere.

But now Eret would like to see his father's _cursed_ and raise him one _haunted._

It's eerie, Eret will never admit to his crew. Even though he is younger than most of them, he is their undisputed leader, so he must appear invincible, all-knowing, and always confident, which most of the time he is entirely able and willing to be. (There is no weakness, he maintains, in bowing before the winter storm. The ice never notices the fool crushed beneath it; the wise man yields and steps aside.)

Privately, Eret is spooked.

Pit traps that fill themselves in. Ankle-biters triggered by tree branches or stones, or with their springs removed entirely and never found. He can understand ravens taking the key holding one contraption open. It must be ravens, clever, meddling things, since he's never seen a magpie this far north, only off to the west. But the single critical nail that held a kick-plate in place, buried deep within the mechanism, and nothing else missing, as if it had been spirited away?

Nets that untie themselves, or disappear entirely. Bola that fail to fire, days after everyone involved swore that they'd checked and repaired the mechanism. Once, an avalanche that swept through and took out a whole forest they'd filled full of spring traps just the previous day.

Dragon tracks around them, sometimes as clear as nails hammered into fresh pine – other times, not a trace to suggest even a rabbit had been there. Eret had looked over one such trail, blatantly over and around the disappeared pit, and had felt distinctly as if someone was mocking him.

 _Is that the best you can do?_ Eret imagined the godlings and ghosts of the far north saying. _You may as well just go home._

Except he can't leave. Not empty-handed. Not again; the scar on his chest twinges even at the thought of it. And there is no escape.

He heard tell of someone who tried to make a run for it once, passed on in whispers through a loose network of other hunters and the occasional trader who had somehow made their way up northward to them. That ship and all its crew were never heard of again, except as a single piece of scorched hull, cracked and scored, that had been picked up by the people who had gone after them, trying to persuade them to come back before they got killed.

There are people, Eret knows, you cannot run from.

The wind kicks up, humming down from the cliff face like a flight of arrows, and because the handful of hunters on lookout, up on the palisades, might be able to see him if they looked this way, Eret tries not to flinch. It's not the cold so much as the way the change in the weather pulls at the brand on his chest, even though his furs. It bites at him every time the wind shifts, bringing another blast of cold down from the none-too-distant ice of the north, and the wind is like a living thing here, playful and cruel and indifferent by turns, never the same thing twice.

He cannot imagine how his father bore the pain of his burns for so long. The elder Eret had been burned badly, years ago, back when his son was a stripling kid just learning to snare and subdue dragons and sail aboard a ship. He had returned in agony, clawing his way back from the edge of death, and he had worn the scars all the rest of his life on his body and his soul.

Every touch of cold is a reminder of the waiting fire, stabbing at him so he never forgets, but he will not flinch and let the weakness and pain show. Next time it might not be his skin that burns as a punishment. It might be one of his crew who suffers, if Eret's master ever figures out where his heart lies.

It's not with himself, for all he talks big and risks bigger. It's with his men who have followed him here to the end of the world, up to the edge of the lands of the dead; with the people who trust him to protect them and provide for them.

He wishes the dragons of this place were not so damned clever. Dragons are never easy prey, but Eret has never seen anything like the ones he's encountered in the last few years.

They don't run. He couldn't believe it, the first time he'd seen. Eret and some of his crew had been following one of their trap lines, and had come across a Hobblegrunt entangled in a snare. The bloody lashes carved into its skin by the metal-cored ropes had worn it out, and it had stopped struggling by the time they got there. The trappers had thought it an easy catch, and they'd been congratulating each other as they stepped out into the clearing the beast had created in its efforts to escape.

No sooner had they emerged than three Nadders and an enormous slender green thing none of them had really gotten a good look at had leaped at the humans, driving them away from the captured dragon. Eret and his men had waved their weapons and shouted to frighten them away, and the man who had brought along a crossbow had fired enough arrows to turn any one dragon into an oversized pincushion. And still the beasts had stood their ground, forcing the humans into a retreat.

By the time they'd regrouped, talked themselves into some semblance of bravery, decided that they hadn't really seen what they'd just seen, and circled back again, Hobblegrunt, Nadders, and green thing had all disappeared, the snare torn to bits and discarded empty on the ground.

Dragons, Eret is convinced, are not supposed to do that. A trap snaps shut, or a predator pounces, and animals will flee the danger lest they be caught too. Dragons are supposed to fly away when threatened, not bring back reinforcements.

There is something terribly off about the dragons this far north. It's like they're possessed, like some spirit of the endless ice wastelands or of the dark lands under the ocean has gotten into them.

Eret wants out, but there is nowhere to go. Desperation drove him northward, against everything his father ever told him, but the old man may have the last laugh in the end. Whatever realm he's watching from now, Eret hopes he's really enjoying being right. Otherwise there is nothing good about his son's situation, except that, with this latest shipment, he might be able to keep the madman off his back for another few months.

When he steps into the barn to get out of the wind for a few minutes, the rows of occupied cages are the most reassuring thing he's seen all day. Scaled bodies huddle in forlorn lumps and curl into tight knots of surrender, resigned to the bounds of their cages and the confines of their muzzles and chains. Their captivity has dulled their scales as their energy wanes, but apart from the sails of his ship they're still the brightest array of colors to be found on this island, even in the meager light from Norge's lantern. The occasional eye, rolling in its socket, follows Eret as he walks down one aisle, but there's not even a snarl from the dragons he passes. Most of them have long since given up clawing at the bars, and the barn is full of the smell of fish and dragon and metal.

"All quiet?" he asks the man slopping out the dragons, looking down the nearest row of cages and the creatures imprisoned within.

"Not a sound, sir," Norge reports, "but they don't half glare."

"As long as that's all they can do," Eret responds, slapping him on the back, and since that's Norge's sort of joke they share a chuckle.

"That one's been trying to get out, actually," Norge says, pointing at a Thunderdrum, "but it can't get a run-up." The cage is too small for it to spread its wings, and the broad dragon can do nothing but bumble against the metal. They had to build a special cage for it; it was just too wide for the ones they had already, and the result is a flattish low box. "You want I should jab it with the spear, next time it tries?"

It's tempting, with baneful yellow eyes glaring at him with pure hatred, but Eret doesn't encourage too much cruelty to their prey. It's a worse place they're going – and their employer doesn't like being brought dragons too exhausted or injured to use. Eret thinks this is because the dragon-master likes breaking them down himself, but he would never be foolish enough to say so out loud. It might get back to him. "No, leave it. It'll tire itself out and give up."

"Right, well, they're all locked up. Checked 'em myself," he says proudly, as if that wasn't his job today. "Night, sir."

At least, Eret assumes that this was Norge's job. He put the chore roster in Rorvik's hands years ago, and it seems to run along smoothly enough, so he's never taken the responsibility back. But he can't imagine why someone would voluntarily stay out in the deepening cold – the stables hold no more heat than the dragons generate themselves – and the beginning of the rain to check the latches on the dragon cages.

The camp is completely engulfed in the shadow of the cliff face by now, and small pit fires – carefully banked, after the last wildfire – have sprung up to cut through the gloom. In the fleeting light, men are shadows and huts are voids, dark shapes disappearing into deeper darkness, away from the wind that nips around them.

Eret can't shake the feeling that something is wrong, and it's not just the weather, which feels like it's drawing in a breath for a major storm. The edges of it are already snapping at the pennants the crew insisted on mounting when they put this place together, saying that if they were going to call this their base it would damn well look like it was theirs. They were so much happier with it once they'd done so that Eret had decided that if they were forced to move on again, pennants would be a priority, right behind walls and fresh water.

In the harbor, his precious, faithful ship is bucking at her moorings, shifting back and forth and bumping against the dock as if sharing her captain's unease. They keep her kitted out with the basics at all times, ready to take off at a moment's notice. If the weather had held – and it is looking less and less like it will – they would have had a new shipment of dragons on board tomorrow morning and been over the horizon by noon.

The sooner they rendezvous with the fleet, the sooner they can get back here, and it says something that Eret would rather be here than with the fleet, however much he hates this place. But he's not taking her out onto the open ocean in the weather on the horizon. She runs before the wind, and in a storm they could end up anywhere…as long as it was the bottom of the ocean.

He decides to check the latches on the dragon cages.

Dragons glare at him and snarl from within their muzzles as he does so, provoked by him jangling the locks and checking that the catches have slotted home and latched there. They wake from shallow dozes at the sound of metal on metal, and Eret grins back at them.

"Sleep tight, dragons," he says, half-mockingly. He isn't afraid of dragons, not when they're sneaking up on him through an unfamiliar forest, into range of his sword and the spears of his crew, and not when they're in the sky banking towards the ship following the bait-smell of fresh fish strewn across the deck, leading them into the crosshairs of a net catapult.

Dragons in cages are no threat at all.

He's slightly surprised when one suddenly springs to life, rattling its wings against the bars and performing an agitated dance in the confines of its cage. It shrieks as best as it can with its jaws bound shut, and lashes its tail against the ground, over and over. In moments the whole stable is awake and throwing a fit.

"Shut up!" Eret roars over the sound of muffled dragon cries and pounding feet, drawing his short sword to bang against the nearest cage. "Shut up!"

They don't shut up. He really should have expected that.

There's nothing in the stable to set them off: only shadows, some deeper than others, and the usual junk of half-repaired nets and upturned sand buckets and sawn-off crates that accumulates in any dragon stable. So he thrusts his sword back into its sheath at the small of his back and runs to the door of the rattling barn.

The moment he steps outside he's buffeted into a stumble by the winds, which slap him down and then race off to do their best to put out the tall torches scattered around the camp, sending shadows darting across the camp and leaving Eret in a momentary lull. Looking up to check the weather forecast again by the clouds, he sees at once the cause of the dragons' agitation.

"Everyone up!" Eret shouts in his best captain's voice, for being heard over a thunderstorm or a battle with pirates on deck. "We've got company! Dragons in the sky!"

Gratifyingly, his crew need only seconds to go from downtime to armed and ready. They race for the ballistae and catapults without being told, which leaves Eret free to bawl out the sentries.

"What are you doing up there, sleeping? If I see one more board game, you're all on latrine duty! Get to the ropes, work's come to us!"

Over the ocean, a mixed handful of dragons screech and flame, darting back and forth as his men aim and fire. Bowstrings thrum as Denholm passes out dragon-root arrows, just sharp enough to get the dragon-root into the blood but not enough to kill, and a flurry of arrows arc out across the bay.

Eret sends the bowmen out closer to the shore when it's apparent they didn't hit anything, snarling at them that maybe a closer view will help, and they run off anxious to do better despite the rain. No one wants a dragon getting into the camp: sure, they'd bring it down, but no one wants to clean up the damage it'll cause. Everyone remembers the last fort fire. They split up, half taking up a new position on the dock and the others heading out around one arm of the bay.

The wind chooses that moment to go for them in force, sending all their arrows tumbling. A number of shots from the archers on the dock bite into the ship instead, which makes Eret's grip on his sword hilt tighten in anger on her behalf.

Up on the outcropping they couldn't move and so built around, someone else creaks a catapult into life. Eret will really have to pay more attention to Rorvik's schedule, but the man can be terrifically boring for someone so often talking about life and death things like supplies. Whoever it is sends a net hissing into the air, taking the wind into account. It falls short of the dragons still hovering out there, though.

"Hold your fire!" Eret orders. "They're out of range! Wait for it!" He raises his free hand in a _stop_ signal even though he's not sure anyone can see him. "Wait for it…"

What he can't work out is what they're doing here. Hunting? Dragons raid settlements all the time, Eret knows. In better times, he and his crew freelanced tracking down and destroying dragon nests that had decided stealing from humans was an easy way to a big dinner. When he was just starting out, there was a chain of islands so dangerous to go through it was cutting off trade – and since it was on a major trade route, that had been a serious problem.

There's an island south of here that's been waging a war for so long they've made a whole lifestyle out of it. Which is great, Eret is all for fighting dragons, but he prefers people who might hire him rather than doing it themselves. They're good trading partners, though. Maybe once this shipment has been delivered he'll take the ship down that way and get out of this nightmare land for a while, see if they need some help yet.

Vacation in a war zone sounds like a good idea. Eret really hates the far north.

Well, these dragons have made a major mistake. This is no unarmed farming settlement.

"Who's on the bola?" Eret demands. The wind snatches his words away and he repeats them at full volume, adding, "Get those rocks in the air! Bring 'em down, men!"

"There's a problem, boss," Andvari calls down the side of the watchtower it's mounted on. "Half the lines have snapped! The wind has got the loose ends all tangled!"

"What?" Eret roars back. There are so many ropes attached to that device it's a wonder it doesn't tangle more often, but he'd thought they were tuned tight enough not to waver. "Who checked it last? Who let it get that bad?"

"I checked it, boss!" Andvari sounds indignant rather than ashamed, which is all that's keeping Eret from climbing up there and knocking him over the head with the heavy bits of the bola's ammunition. "Last night!"

Eret decides to climb up there anyway, although he'll reserve judgement on bludgeoning Andvari for now. "Keep firing!" he orders the archers. "But be smart with the arrows. Watch the wind!"

"Huh?" Norge says, predictably. The man should not own a bow.

"The pennants, idiot," Eret takes the time to remind him for everyone's sake. "Those bloody pennants you all insisted on putting up. Watch those. Or if that doesn't make sense, go and get a barrel of fish and see if you can lure those beasts in closer!"

With his luck, Norge will go for the fish option, drop them all over, and the whole place will smell like dragon chum. Eret never thought he'd be glad for the rain that's spitting down; at least it'll wash the stink away. He'll worry about that later.

"What's going on here?" Eret demands when he reaches the top of the watchtower. "What do you mean, snapped? Overnight? Have we got giant mice up here now?"

The tower is probably one of the warmest places in the camp, because the team he put on building it reasoned that they'd be spending a lot of time up here and requisitioned all the lumber when Eret was away and therefore not watching. As a result, people are always eating their dinners up here.

(A memory goes off in a corner of Eret's brain about Rorvik talking about that chore schedule again and watchtower duty, but he dismisses it and orders it to stop digging up useless facts when he's trying to do his job. His brain obediently stops and starts asking useless questions instead, and he's left wondering if giant mice are edible and, if so, what they taste like. The useless facts return to inform him that they probably taste like small mice, which he happens to be familiar with due to a long story, and the useless questions retaliate with wondering if everyone's brain is so noisy, or if it's a lot quieter to be, for example, Norge.)

"No, boss," Andvari snarls back, evidently anticipating Eret's reserve bludgeoning option. "These were cut. Look!"

Andvari holds up a length of cord. The end of it is neatly, cleanly, sliced through, the sort of cut you'd get from that special dragon iron that makes such expensive but lovely weapons.

Eret stares at the cut and thinks of several very pungent curses. "Can you fix it?" he says instead. At least the rage has shut the other voices up.

"Not in time to catch that!"

He doesn't need Andvari's pointing finger to notice the Zippleback that's dived in close and blown up one of the watch platforms and a good bit of the wall, but the light from the blast does draw his attention to something else.

Maybe it's just the echoes of the blast in his eyes, but he could have sworn…

"Guard this," he tosses over his shoulder at Andvari as he makes a dive for the ladder. "Start figuring out what you need to fix it." If the man answers, he doesn't hear, too preoccupied with the shadow of movement within the camp.

Everyone should be on the attack, getting those persistent dragons reeled in and bound up, ready for shipment. Maybe it's just Norge, rolling out a barrel of fish like he was told to. But it hadn't moved like Norge at all.

Staring back towards the dragon barn, Eret blinks frantically, trying to see through the darkness and rain with little more than a few wind-whipped torches to help. With the shouting of his crew behind him and the rest of the promised storm howling ever closer, he can't hear a thing otherwise – if there's movement out there, it's quiet.

"Everyone stop!" Eret shouts. "Make fire! Lots of fire! Now!"

"Sir?" someone asks. "We'll ruin our night vison."

If they burn out their night vision with torches, then those dragons out in the bay will be all but invisible except when they flame, give or take the odd Monstrous Nightmare or, gods forbid, a Flightmare. They'll lose their chance at them. But that unsettled feeling is creeping back over Eret. It possibly never really left, was just drowned out under the excitement of dragon hunting, and he's finally going to listen to it.

"I don't care! Make light! Arrows, torches, anything, burn them!"

There's always wood lying around, although less after they learned their lesson with the previous fort, but the courtyard doesn't truly light up until Denholm runs to the forge and starts putting all those muscles to use on the bellows.

The forge-fire roars to life like an angry dragon, which is pretty much the state of things right now.

Norge never got to the fish they keep in the barn for feeding the dragons: he's slumped against the side of the barn like he's decided to take a nap instead.

Dragons fill the yard, and Eret doesn't need to recognize the half-healed marks of traps on legs and ankles – or the whip marks across the face of an oversized Gronkle relative that almost ate through its cage and had to be driven into another one before it could get all the way free, or the marks from long-worn muzzles across snarling jaws – to know that this is an entirely impossible jailbreak.

The way they move, stumbling at their freedom, would be enough. The way they look at the dumbstruck humans, crouching and retreating just a bit as if caught doing something they shouldn't, would be enough. The one open door of the double doors into the barn, with the speckled Raincutter they shot down from the ship three weeks ago now slipping out through it, would be enough.

Dragons don't sabotage traps. Dragons don't stay to defend their comrades. Dragons don't organize distractions.

 _Dragons don't understand locks_.

Eret hates this place.

The freed dragons hiss at the light as they stretch out limbs and shuffle feet, stretching jaws that have been held shut and making experimental leaps into flight, fighting the wind with stiff wings. One disappears into the sky even as Eret watches, mouth half-open in shock.

He remembers to close it just in time as Rorvik runs to his side, bow in hand, and then turns back to the crew and shouts, "Dragons loose!"

Eret should have done that, but instead he draws his longsword and leads the charge.

The dragons scatter, on the wing or on foot, racing for the hole that Zippleback blasted in the enclosing wall. One falls to a well-placed dragon-root arrow, stumbling in the mud, but to Eret's shock another grabs it by the scruff of its neck and another by the root of its tail, working together to carry it into the air with them.

As a result, the hunters reach the barn without incident, Eret in the lead, but only because all the dragons and the months of work they represent, that would have kept their skins in one piece for just a little longer, have escaped.

Everything undone in one bad night.

Eret wants to scream in rage and throw his sword to the ground and stomp on it, but he lost the habit of doing that when he was ten. He still has an interesting scar on his foot to show for it. Since he's holding the sword anyway, he uses the hilt to strike the remaining door, knocking it all the way open.

Empty cage.

Empty cage.

Empty cage.

Empty cage.

Thunderdrum.

Thunderdrum, and a small dark dragon perched on top of the cage, fiddling with the latch.

Except – and it takes a moment for Eret to figure this out, as the light from the torchbearers following him slips in through the door and his eyes adjust – what in the name of all gods _is_ it?

He doesn't get time to think any further, because a shrieking whistle is all the warning he gets before purple-blue fire erupts in his face.

Or where his face would have been if he hadn't dropped to the ground reflexively, taking his loyal men down with him, and the blast tears out the doors, taking them off at the hinges along with a large part of the wall, and explodes somewhere in the sky.

Eret spits out the taste of dragon-barn floor (the irrelevancies note that mucking out the dragon barn will be an excellent punishment next time that…and then shrug when they can't think of a relevant scenario) and starts getting back to his feet. Somewhere in the darkness, he can hear a dragon's whistle, rapid chirruping noises sounding strangely out of place in a building that has only ever contained muted dragons, and in a silence where a few moments ago there was the shouting and activity of a dragon hunt.

The agitated whistles are answered by a snarl that sounds far too close, and Eret's efforts to blink away the flash-blindness and stand up again are rewarded by a sight as unbelievable as anything else that has happened tonight.

It's beautiful. It's impossible. It's darker than the darkness, the glow of its flame and the reflections in its eyes sparking obsidian rainbows across its hide. It's a legend come to glorious life.

It's stalking across the tops of the cages like they were level ground, as graceful a predator as Eret has ever seen, as he will ever see.

It's an incredibly angry Night Fury, tail whipping back and forth like a furious jet-black giant cat, razor-sharp teeth bared in a menacing snarl, green eyes fixed on him.

Eret whispers the name of a very old clan god, and momentarily forgets to care that he's about to die.

The spell is broken with the sound of metal grating against metal from the Thunderdrum's cage, and Eret takes his eyes off the Night Fury to see the other little dragon drop from the roof of the enclosure to scuttle to the freed Thunderdrum's side and get to work on its muzzle.

"Hey!" Eret shouts – later, he will tell himself that he was struck stupid by the sight of the Night Fury – and steps into the barn.

Immediately, another purple blast takes out another section of wall, so close to his head he can feel his hair crisp and crinkle.

"Okay…" he says very slowly, and considers stepping backwards. But his men are crowded in behind him now, staring. Even if he doesn't impale himself on their various weapons he doesn't want to back down where they can see him, even from this glorious beast.

The Fury shrieks as if warning them, racing from cage to cage to put itself between the humans and the little dragon. It bristles all over, wings spreading, ear-flaps pinned back aggressively, its whole body shaking with readiness to attack.

Part of Eret wants to step forward and let it kill him, just to get to see it in action for real: surely it would be worth dying to see that first. Part of him is horribly aware that it could kill just about everyone he cares about with a single shot, with them all packed in behind him like this. Part of him is trying to calculate how much he could get for this beautiful creature, and concluding that there might not be enough silver in the world, but that it might be enough to buy all their freedoms.

Part of him is still insisting _dragons can't pick locks!_

That's the part that looks past the Night Fury to the dark figure fiddling with the Thunderdrum's muzzle.

Not moving his lips as much as possible, in case the Night Fury objects to people talking, he whispers, "More light."

Helpfully, someone raises a torch above their heads, and Eret wonders how for a stupid second before remembering that the Night Fury blasted out a good portion of the barn to make a point about people moving.

In the brighter light Eret can get a better look at the creature the Night Fury is guarding. It's obviously a dragon: it's covered in jet-black scales, just like the Night Fury, and it has a dragon's dorsal fin, and it's crouched on its haunches like a Nadder or a Raincutter, and it has wings draped from its shoulders, dark head lowered over the mechanism of the Thunderdrum's chains.

And then it glances over its shoulder to check on its enemies, meeting Eret's eyes for a split second, and it's not entirely a dragon at all.

Dragons do not have human faces. But no human ever snarled like that.

Before he can make sense of it, the Thunderdrum's muzzle falls away, and the dragon-human creature leaps aside, yowling with an animal's voice. For a second more Eret thinks the angry Thunderdrum has attacked it, but instead the Night Fury whips around and runs towards it.

Night Fury and Thunderdrum race past each other and suddenly Eret has more immediate problems.

"Cover your ears!" he shouts, dropping his sword, and suits actions to words, hoping his crew will react as fast as he does.

Even with his ears plugged, the Thunderdrum's roar knocks him backwards like a physical force, not at all cushioned by the bodies of his crew. By the time Eret gets his bearings again, they're scattered all over the yard, tossed like twigs in a windstorm into the mud that's been created from the rain and the churning of escaping dragons.

When Eret picks himself up out of the mud, the first thing he sees is the Thunderdrum, giving up on its shambling run and taking off into the air instead. But it doesn't go far.

All above, there are dragons, perched on the roofs of huts or fighting the wind and the rain to hover above the compound. Some of them are the escaped captives, and some are what Eret thinks might have been the diversionary force.

Which reminds him, as his brain gets all its oars lined up again, of the Night Fury and its creature.

He checks on his crew first – some people seem to be unconscious, but others are getting out of the mud and checking them to make sure no one is breathing dirt and too knocked out to know about it. And then he looks over at the barn.

The Night Fury is standing in front of it, watching them with what Eret thinks is a combination of disdain and anger. It's certainly glaring, teeth bared.

And on its back, the dragon-creature is glaring too.

He remembers legends of shape-shifters. There were beasts with human faces that lured careless children into the bogs to be devoured or out onto the ice to freeze, and creatures that opened doors with human hands and slipped through houses to enchant swords with invisible fractures so that they would shatter when needed most. The world is full of magic and impossible things, and most of them are dangerous.

To those stories Eret has a new one to add, of something part dragon and part human.

Except maybe not, because he hasn't believed in those campfire tales for years, and the dark head he'd seen bent over the Thunderdrum has fallen back, away from matted hair, like a hood.

Not completely a dragon, maybe, Eret guesses, for all it had sounded like one in the barn. It could be a human, dressed up to look like a dragon, except the creature had sounded like a dragon, and it seems to have claws. And no wild dragon would let a human ride on its back that way, least of all something as mythically lethal as a Night Fury.

What sort of dark magic must it have to command a _Night Fury,_ itself little more than a ghost story?

The dragon-man bares his teeth as well, and it should look ridiculous, but somehow it doesn't, possibly because Eret can sense that he _means it_. That biting is an option. Will it shift a little closer to a dragon form and tear into him, if provoked?

He doesn't speak, only looks up at the other dragons and roars something, raising a paw into the air to signal to them, claws flashing in the fire-light. For a moment Eret thinks it was the Night Fury crying out, but the fantastic creature is still snarling at the humans in the mud. Above, the dragons scream back.

"What the –" Eret manages, and fire rains down.

The huts burn, and the palisades, and the platforms. The watchtower goes up in flames that devour all that timber ravenously, and the forge smolders as the embers, abandoned when Denholm came to watch the spectacle with everyone else, find new life.

The dragon barn burns like it's a funeral pyre, appropriately enough, because one way or another, Eret and his crew are all dead men.

In the light from the burning fort – Eret is beginning to have suspicions about the previous one – the Night Fury stalks forward, entirely fearlessly, as the other dragons flee the increasingly hostile sky, into the storm.

 _Dragons don't approach humans_ , Eret adds to his list of lies.

It walks to him unerringly, the rider on its shoulders shifting with it as if he belongs there. Neither the howling rain nor the heat from the fires seem to bother them at all. They're both watching him, but the moment someone else moves the Fury whips its head around and blasts at the man, faster than thought, and then is back to staring down Eret before he's processed that the resulting scream was frightened rather than hurt.

He can't move, not just because he's pretty sure the Fury will kill him if he does. The fact that the Fury is probably also going to kill him if he stays where he is almost doesn't matter. If the dragon doesn't kill him, gods-damned Drago Bludvist will. The dragon will probably be quicker about it, and entirely more glorious.

That's how he ends up eye to eye with a dragon out of legends and a demon creature something between dragon and man.

Closer up, Eret decides that if the creature is some new variety of shape-changing dragon, it's a good one, but he would be willing to consider that it might be human after all – if it weren't so very much a dragon. Surely no shape-changer would think to add details like freckles, or the tracks of crude stitches binding together what must be leather armor, or the fading lines of tiny scars, especially if it had chosen to take the form of a slim young man but gotten distracted halfway.

Eret has seen madness. Eret works for madness. But this is a new one on him, something possibly not entirely of this world, perhaps a beast-god of dragons. Some of the gods he's heard stories about can take the forms of beasts. Why should a god-spirit of dragons not be part man, if it chose?

It's a shock when it – he – speaks.

" _Pfikingr,_ " the dragon-creature spits at him. It sounds like a dragon would sound if dragons could be taught to speak, garbling the sounds and chewing them over like bones. " ."

Eret speaks enough of several languages to trade in, but a dragon-daemon trying to speak what sounds like badly mangled Norse isn't something he ever thought he'd have to translate. He makes a guess. The burning fort, which is starting to become very uncomfortable as the winds from the storm whip the flames into a frenzy, is what he would like to call a Hint.

"Go?" he ventures.

The dragon-man bares his teeth again, but there might be the edge of a satisfied smile in there. It's in the eyes. "Isss. Drakkkn herr," he says. " _Pfikingr_ nuh."

Pointing out that Eret doesn't consider himself a Viking is, he decides, a losing proposition. The important thing is that this…apparition, he decides…is letting them go. Probably.

Into a killer storm that they can't hope to navigate through. It'll be a miracle if they can even keep the ship afloat. This creature is sparing them a death by fire – probably – so they can die on the water.

Except this death is certain. The ship is a gamble.

"Get everyone out of here!" Eret says, raising his voice but not shouting. He doesn't want dragon or rider to think he's shouting at them, even though the storm is making anything below a yell useless, and the echoes of the Thunderdrum's roar will still be ringing through everyone's ears. "Count heads. Don't leave anyone behind. If you've got weapons on you, bring them. Otherwise, don't go back. If we get to the ship now we might be able to run before the storm."

"Boss –" Andvari says. They both know how unlikely that is.

"I said go." Well, the dragon-creature said go, but damned if Eret's going to have it – him – give orders to his people directly.

Inside he is burning, anger mixing with fear for his people and fear of Drago and fear of the vengeful dragons creating a conflagration like Zippleback gas waiting for the spark. If his people die on the sea, or beneath Drago's wrath when Eret comes to him empty-handed, it will be the dragon rider's fault. Eret has absolutely no doubt about who, or maybe what, has been sabotaging the last few years and keeping them on the barest edge of survival in this cursed, haunted corner of the world.

Eret holds his ground until his crew has run for the ship, until Fury and Fury-creature have taken off in a single leap and disappeared into the fire and the night and the violent storm along with the rest of the dragons, so far beyond recovery they might as well be over the edge of the world.

And then he snatches his sword from the mud and runs, knowing that he is in all likelihood running to his death, with his life burning down around him, for the last safe haven of his beloved ship.

Above him, the storm screams like a triumphant dragon.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:** Just a reminder that among dragons, like most animals, the rules of physical contact are different from human norms. Toothless and dragon-raised Hiccup are a tactile pair because that's how they communicate. Read it however you're comfortable with.

 **And:** You guys. I love you all. Thank you for coming back. Thank you also to those who have been waiting for this story since "Nightfall" finished; thank you for understanding that I could do this fast or I could do this right, and I wanted to do it right. I can't promise chapters of this one at the blazing pace "Nightfall" was written at, but I'm doing my best.

 _ **Stormfall**_ **, Part Two**

Through the noise of the storm, they can hear the cries of dragons struggling to stay in the air, yelping _pain_ and _excitement_ both at the pull of muscles stiff from the trap but free to fly once again.

Their cries are a joy to the dragon-pair, almost as much as the storm. Storms are their element, the rough winds and roar of the storm's voice and the snapping bite of its flashing teeth. The rush of the storm at sea and the remembered heat of the burning human nest far below and the shared delight that thrums between them in touches and small sounds makes a warmth inside much greater than the cold of the rain. The island with the burning nest is long since lost to them, hidden somewhere by the winds that knock dragons away like pebbles swatted by an idle paw. In the storm there are no landmarks, and the pointing stars are hidden by thunderclouds.

The black dragon banks and dives, tearing himself and his beloved-companion free of a gust that threatens to knock them off balance and sends them tumbling too close to the dark shadow of another dragon. Neither he nor his rider can tell who it is, familiar companion from their own home-nest or one of the prisoners freed from the human cages, but they keep their distance for now. Secure in their flying-together harness, Hiccup yelps _here us here careful watch-out!_ , warning the other dragon off. Playing a fly-close game is a fun game, and they are humming with excitement at the success of the hunt, but they are not yet home safely so now is not a time to play.

Stopping their fall with a sharp snap of wings, Toothless twists in the air to send them soaring towards better winds, keeping them beneath the thick and blinding stone-grey clouds and out of the rough waters that churn too closely below. Most dragons can swim, and he and his other half are comfortable in shallower waters and with fishing from the air. But the ocean has fangs this night, striking up at dragons and pulling them down where they cannot escape the cold that freezes wingtips and tails and delicate, clever paws until they are too numb even to bleed.

On his back, his rider shifts his weight, catching sight of another of their just-now flock tumbling from the sky, out of control in the storm winds. Toothless understands the thoughts of his other half as he does his own – they think together as they fly, understanding each other completely even from the smallest of signals – and can follow Hiccup's attention even without looking to see where his eyes are. There are few sounds to be heard over the screams of the angry storm, or signals to watch for in the darkness that is hard to see through even for Toothless, and they communicate almost purely through touch.

Together they dart through the winds to fly beside their flailing dragon-cousin, who now they see is Moss on Paws who they know. Toothless shows her which way to go by spreading his wings into the wind, letting her find him in the air and follow his lead, and she crowds in towards them so close that Hiccup can reach out and draw his claws lightly across her hide to encourage her before Toothless coils away. It will help none of them if her wings tangle with his, and then they will all be falling. The pair who think of themselves as _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ , part _Tt-th-ss_ and part _(click)-phuh_ and both together as one, are agile flyers even in the storm, with many tricks learned from many such flights for the joy of it.

Toothless hums _worry_ , seeing in Moss on Paws a problem with the hunt they worked out so carefully, and on his back Hiccup snarls _frustration_ and _irritation_ and a whimper of _agreement_ , reluctant but unable to deny the truth of it.

If there was no storm they would have been away and safe and home by now, but the sky cannot be commanded and they had chosen to leap anyway rather than waiting and missing their pounce. To speak to humans directly and go into their nests to break traps that were guarded is a new thing that most dragons would not dare to do, would not even think to do, but they have learned a few things about humans recently, and together the remarkable pair of dragon and dragon-man are all but fearless.

Humans who are _almost_ always the enemy might consider him human, but Hiccup knows that he is not – he is one of the dragons of the nest of the great king. This is a true thing. He knows now that he had been brought there as a hatchling by Cloudjumper who had been their mother's mate, for Toothless had considered Hiccup's mother to be his as well, sharing all things as they do. Cloudjumper had caught her as dragons choose their mates and stolen her away like a treasure to be protected. He was told some of this by a human who had learned a bit to speak as dragons do and who had shown him that their paws were alike. She had said things in human words that he understood a little and showed that they were true, shattering a belief he had held all his life as if she were a predator breaking into an egg.

Hiccup cares nothing for this – he knows where he belongs, he knows what he is inside – and he does not think about it.

His mother Valka had never thought to tell him, before she died, that he was human: it had never occurred to her that he did not know. That her son acted and spoke as much like a dragon as the dragons themselves was quite adorable, after all. She had looked with affection at the way the flock had accepted her son, hoping that the two of them could make peace between her people and their dragon enemies. Because of this dream, she had done nothing.

But what was sweet in a baby of three years would have been worrying in a child of thirteen, had Valka lived to see her son reach that age.

Hiccup is twenty-one now, and when he chooses to be, he is _terrifying_.

He wears dragon-scales like armor, and dragon's claws in gloves fitted to his clever, different paws, protecting them and turning them into deadly weapons. He is lightweight and agile, moving as dragons do in leaps and scrambles and pounces, rather than heavy and strong as humans often are. Although he is small in the eyes of his dragon family, he can hold his own in a fight on the ground, for he fights in the manner of dragons, biting and clawing, roaring and snarling, and with the intelligence that makes him so dangerous, able to predict his enemy's movement and plan to take advantage of their weakness. But the air is his natural habitat. He has been flying since he was a baby, had taken quite naturally to his first flight in his mother's arms, and sought it out ever since.

He is altogether a wild creature, with a wind-tangled mane of long hair that he has never really learned to cut back and the voice of a dragon, as comfortable on Toothless' back and at his side as if they were a single being. The black dragon is as much a part of him as his own heart. Inseparable since infancy, they believe themselves to be two parts of the same soul.

There are dragons with two heads, so it is not unthinkable to them that they might be a dragon with two bodies, bound together in ways they cannot see, just as they stay flying together with a harness they think of as a flying-with.

That they cannot see a thing does not mean it does not exist. They cannot see the wind that is trying to drive them into the blinding clouds one moment or smash them from the sky the next, but they feel it and use it and defy it, slipping around the force of it and sidling away from the blows it strikes. On other nights they have played in storms no less fierce.

A thing that is hidden is still a real thing; that is how hiding-finding games work.

Cold cannot be seen, or hunger. Scents in the wind are invisible. The touch of the mind of the great king of dragons, who rules their flock, cannot be seen.

Things that cannot be seen are still true things.

Things that have happened and are no more cannot be seen, but they were still real. They leave scars in the mind and scars across skin, and the dragon-raised feral bears many such marks. The memories of battles and hunts and being-hunted are etched across his skin. He wears those of hunger and the deepest cold of winter in his body, and of traps that cut and break and snap across his paws, and all of them with the same stubborn resolve that allowed a human child to survive in a dragon nest in the far north. He could not have survived alone, but he has never truly been alone. Toothless is always with him – they protect each other and learn from each other and get each other into trouble and out of it – and the flock has raised and trained him as one of their own, just as they would any hatchling.

The effect is as if a dragon had learned to take on a human body, but had learned nothing of how a human mind might work or how humans behaved. Neither one thing nor the other, perhaps, but much more dragon than man.

This was his choice, and he is not _satisfied_ with it – he cannot imagine that it could be any other way. In the sky of the far north, sharing Toothless' wings and his fire, he is home.

But their home is dangerous, and although they are small dragons they are clever, learning to fight off their enemies and protect their friends with speed and cunning. They have fought in midair battles with stranger-dragons trespassing on their territory, and raided human settlements for food when there is not enough food for the flock, and traps set by humans are their prey. This is not the first time they have freed other dragons from the traps and cruelty of humans.

Hiccup hates dragon-trappers most of all – he was taught this attitude by his mother, long ago, when she began the war on dragon traps her sons still wage even though they forgot her for a long time after her death. A lifetime of that war has turned a child's disgust and fear-anger into a fierce cold flame as sharp as the ice of the king or Toothless' fangs.

He would not object to humans if they would leave his family – and other dragons – alone. There are _pfikingr_ – Hiccup cannot pronounce the word _Viking_ , although he recognizes the sound of the word – on an island called _Buh-rrrrKK_ in human noises and Island of Dragons and Strange _Pfikingr_ in the way Hiccup names things. They do not hunt dragons anymore, so they are no longer the enemy, although _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ are never quite sure _what_ to make of them.

The trappers with the ship with the colorful wings are their enemy, though. They have learned to recognize the ship and its people just as they recognize other flocks of dragons, and for many days they watched the human nest in secret, planning together. They waited to strike like they were lurking by the edge of a hole in the ice for a furry water prey-beast to come to the surface to breathe.

But they understood that humans moving holding-things onto the ship's back meant that the humans would next move cages with dragons in them onto the ship's back, and then they would take the dragons away. The humans would come back and the dragons would not, and that could not be borne.

Hidden among the stones where they could see into the human nest, Hiccup had snarled and paced and thought aloud to Toothless about the storm-clouds and the cages and the ship, balancing each against the others, until he had tired of the decision and curled up against his dragon-partner's side, singing to him in mewls of _not sure don't-like fear anger you? you? what you? you me we us go yes go yes no maybe what not-sure not-sure frustrated…_

Toothless had huffed _silly_ at him and lifted his chin, signaling _determination stubborn yes yes daring eager yes yes us go c'mon ready ready_.

So they had flown back to where they knew some of their flock-mates were hunting and invited them to come with the dragon-pair to chase humans and break traps. They explained the ideas Hiccup had had about sneaking using gesture and pretending, acting it out between them to show what they meant to do.

And now they have pretended for humans, too, showing the story of what they wanted to say. Dragons have to shout to make humans listen, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ know, because humans do not see signals and they do not listen to any noises but their own.

Humans can be very stupid, so if they did not understand, the dragon-pair will have to show them again and shout louder. That is later, though, and while Hiccup and Toothless are both better at thinking about _later_ than most of their flock-mates, _now_ is more important to think about.

But there is no thought in flying in a storm. To fly in a thunderstorm is instinct, and practice, and freedom, decisions made in a moment as quick and surprising and blinding as lightning. It is knowing how to fly with the winds rather than fighting them, and in slipping away from dangerous winds and the taste of lightning-flashes like jumping from stone to shifting stone. It is in never getting dizzy and knowing how to be out of control until that control can be snatched back with a thieving paw.

They feel the storm in their bones and the play of rain across their skins, taste it in the scent of heavy clouds and the salt of the raging sea, hear it in the growling of thunder and the distant cries of their flock-mates, and make it their own.

The storm is heavy on their backs, and it has blown the others all away. For a moment, black dragon and dragon-rider are alone together in the sky, relying only on themselves and responsible only for each other. When they wander far from home, exploring for new places and new dragon-flocks to meet and talk to and chase and be chased by, to be alone-together is a delight, but there are others in their flock now, and they should be flying together.

 _Where?_ Toothless asks in a low growl that Hiccup feels more as a vibration than a sound, prompting them both to look all around. They dip lower in the sky to search below the cloud cover, where the rain falls freely. It strikes them like pebbles dropped over the side of a cliff face, and Hiccup huddles into Toothless' shoulders, hunching his own shoulders against the assault and hiding his face against black scales. Out of the corner of his eye he sees a dark shape in the water, but when he turns to stare at it more carefully he recognizes it as the ship with the colorful wings, thrashing against the waves with its wings all sodden and rolling back and forth like a rock-skin cousin who has eaten many stones. There is no danger from it – a small movement might be a human out on its back, struggling to not fall – so the ship is not of interest, and Hiccup dismisses it as not his problem compared to his missing companions.

Taking a deep breath, he looks up and around again, searching the sky for the flash of dragon-scales lit up by lightning strikes and listening for voices crying _fear_ or _pain_ or _joy-at-reunion_ or _attention_. Toothless roars an _attention_ -cry of his own, calling any dragon listening to come towards his voice, but there is no answer.

 _Enough!_ Hiccup snarls, a sound he would use to put a stop to a game that has grown too rough, that will leave him with bruises and cuts from over-playful dragon-cousins much larger than he. He is accustomed to their casual buffets and playful bites, and he will hold his ground against any flock-mate even without Toothless to defend him, but even many hatchlings are bigger than he is. _Up go up up flame now flame up!_

Toothless understands the new plan immediately, and spins away from a gust to rear back and soar straight upwards into the sky, flaming at the cloud cover with blasting-fire. His flames flash like lightning, bright and clear, a signal for any dragon able to see it.

Far away, another dragon flames in reply, and at once they race towards it, glad to have found at least one of their missing friends. As they do so, another flame lights up the sky for a brief moment, in a different direction. Unconsciously, Hiccup marks its position and direction, putting together a mental map of the area.

It takes many more blasts of flame, the growing flock combining their fires to make a brighter signal, to gather together the dragons still in the air. Hiccup does not know how many there are – he has no understanding of numbers – but he checks off dragons he recognizes, realizing even in the darkness and the chaos that some are missing. He has no way of knowing if they have found the island of the burning nest again, or landed safely elsewhere, or if they have fallen from the sky.

Even the ones still flying are exhausted. Their wings beat more slowly and they cluster in as tightly as possible so that the stronger dragons protect the weaker ones from the worst of the winds. Very Very Very Blue, who is not a hatchling anymore but is still small, flutters close to the biggest dragon he can find, and the loud-voice lets him land on her back to rest. Kicks in Dreams has a new scorch mark across her side from a lightning strike, and her hatching-mate Licks Stones is nowhere to be seen. Heads droop and tongues loll, tails hang limply, and the eyes that turn to _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ are dim and veiled behind very much blinking.

This was their plan, so Hiccup and Toothless are the leaders for now, and the others expect them to know what to do. Those from home know that the odd dragon-pair are always full of ideas that must be clever because they are so difficult to understand but sometimes work well, and the strangers from the cages recognize only that dragons who can get them away from chains and jaw-holders are to be trusted.

There is a small light in the distance that might be a break in the storm or a flame-signal from another dragon, so Hiccup points it out to Toothless, leaning far over the black dragon's head to point with a single claw, and then waves _this way follow us go yes fly now this-way!_ to the flock.

They follow because there is nowhere else to go.

But the closer they get to the light the less like the familiar shine of moon and stars it seems, but through the heavy rain it is hard to see what it is until they are already too close.

There is no break in the storm there, and no safe landing place. As it comes into focus Hiccup tenses in shock and fear, feeling Toothless backwing so sharply he turns almost nose over tail, tangling himself up like a clever-tie that holds things together. _Danger!_ they yip together, crying out to the others. _No no no bad careful danger danger alert bad bad!_

The ship with the colorful wings was no threat, but the light is from fires on many, many ships, holding their position on the ocean even in the face of the storm. They are more ships than even the flocks of ships that sometimes travel through their territory and are good to steal from or fly over closely to make humans yelp and run. Those ships are slender and light and smell of tar and wood and humans, but these stink of metal and an unfamiliar burning smell that is not good like dragon-fire but heavy in the nose and thick in the throat when Hiccup opens his mouth to taste it, reflexively gathering all the information he can about this new threat.

He does not doubt that it is a threat, this great flock of ships. To him they seem as many as the flock that lives under the rule of the king of ice, so many that he could never name them all because there will always be more. And it is a thing of humans, new and strange and therefore dangerous, and enough even to overwhelm and outnumber their greatest of flocks!

Hiccup has never questioned that his family and their king are the dominant power in their northern realm, but this –! It's an invasion, a plague, a stampede of human ships, and for the first time he feels truly insecure in their own territory.

The water beneath and around it bubbles and churns as if the water around it was filled with fish, swimming and swarming all over each other, but where usually such a sight would make him hungry with the promise of an easy hunt he bares his teeth in an instinctive snarl instead.

There is the scent of dragons about it, too, and that makes no sense at all.

All around the dragon-pair, their flock turns to scatter and retreat, but they do so slowly, as if too tired to fly any further even in the face of such a strange and powerful human thing. They falter in the sky, sinking lower. A sense of hopelessness pervades the thoughts of the flock, leaping from one to the other through the subtle signals dragons flying together learn to recognize on a level deeper than thought, telling them how to fly together, how to veer and turn and dive and leap without colliding, so that the directions of the flight-leader are communicated to his or her followers.

In their exhaustion, in the disappointment of finding no safe haven after all their flying, the flock feels _giving up_. Those freed from captivity feel the return of the metal bars and know that they have fled and flown and struggled only to find a new cage in which aching wings and sore sides can rest, and they pass this on to the others involuntarily. The relentless, unending rain is everything there is, and the only bright fires left are the ones on the ships.

One by one, the fleeing dragons stop. They turn back. They stumble towards the ships, and the roiling dark water beneath them.

 _No!_ Toothless roars at them, commanding. He shakes off the feeling of despair, thinking instead of free flight, and his love for his Hiccup- _beloved-self_ on his shoulders, crying out with him, and of the excitement of landing in a place where they have never been before.

He thinks of the time they fought a monster that tried to trap and then devour them both, that was both an Alpha and an eater of dragons, and of the triumph of bringing their beloved great king to the monster's nest and helping him to defeat her so that the dragons she had enslaved with her mind-calls were set free. He thinks of watching Hiccup do things that no other dragon can do, making patterns and shapes with charcoal and lines in sand, tying together deep wounds so that they will heal, taking apart traps that bite and playing hiding-finding-running-chasing games with the shining pieces; they are never bored together.

The others do not listen to his cries, and the only response he hears are the soft noises that Hiccup makes as he paws at his eyes with the side of his claws, snarling a protest.

It is good to fly all together with a flock, but if the choice of the flock is _wrong_ – and it must be wrong to fly towards these ships; it must be wrong to land on them and huddle down as Moss on Paws is doing, resigned as humans appear on the back of the ship; to wait and make no protest as they throw a tangle-net over her and bind her jaws with ropes is _wrong, wrong, wrong_ – then they will not follow!

Rage and fear give Toothless' wings new strength, and he feels Hiccup come to attention on his shoulders, no longer slumped in weariness but tense and crouched for battle and flight as fast as possible, paws twining into the flying-with and chest pressed low to the bigger dragon's back. Toothless can feel his heartbeat, thrumming through them both as quickly as racing paws, and the low snarl of frustration at the sight of their friends that they led to free others, captured instead, and the ones they set out to free led into a more terrifying cage.

The feeling of despair bites at them again like cold that creeps into paws on ice, nipping at the edges and eating its way deeper and deeper. But their anger is stronger, and Toothless draws in a breath to burn the nearest ship, preparing to lunge in, on the attack.

In the darkness even dragons struggle to see Toothless; when they fly in silence the night is their camouflage, but the black dragon roars _danger!_ and _threat flee you urgent-important flee now now now!_ They are not hiding now.

The dragons on the deck do not look back at them, but pale human faces turn up towards them and scatter. They drop ropes that are carried away by the rainwater washing across the ship as it struggles to free itself – even the ship is chained, bound somehow to the churning ocean! – but more humans scuttle out from the belly of the ships like ants, swarming and biting, too many even to see all at once.

Ants can be burned and ants can be washed away and ants can be escaped, but Kicks in Dreams lowers her head and succumbs to the biting of spears, letting them herd her away. She is devoured by the ship and disappears into its stomach, unprotestingly.

All the instincts Hiccup and Toothless possess are screaming at them to fly away from this place of chains as quickly as they can, set their tail to it and fly as fast as possible until it has vanished over the horizon, and never, never approach it again. They should scent the wind always for its stink and run away from even the traces of it before it can hunt them and trap them as it has trapped the others.

Furious more than frightened, they do not flee. Instead they land on the side of the ship and Toothless flames at the nearest cluster of humans, blasting the wood of the ship's back away from beneath their feet so that they stumble and fall and cannot reach little Very Very Very Blue or Colored Like Storm.

Arrows strike both dragons, though, and they whimper, eyes rolling, and slump to the ground.

More arrows hiss towards Hiccup and Toothless where they perch, screaming challenges and outrage at humans and encouragement to dragons deaf to their cries. Toothless has reared up onto his back legs to signal defiance with voice and body and boiling flame, wings spread and tail raised for balance, and Hiccup realizes too late that they are an excellent target for humans with arrows and tangle-nets. The beginning of his yelp of _fly!_ is drowned out under a deafening crack of lightning and the answering roar of thunder following close enough to catch it by the tail.

The storm saves them, the slight lull vanishing under the whims of the thunderstorm. The ship thrashes against its chains, trying to escape, and the movement and a blast of wind as fierce as Toothless' blasting-fire swats them from their perch like a blow from a whip-sharp tail. Hiccup and Toothless tumble, falling towards the threatening ocean.

Caught by surprise, Toothless catches them only moments before they would have fallen into the dark water.

From above humans lean over the side of the ship and shoot more arrows at them, firing wildly like a panicked blue-spikes cousin. All of them miss, vanishing into the water below like raindrops, brushed aside by the rain.

Hiccup doubts that the archers can hit them, in the face of the storm, but they still frighten him as they hiss by. Mistakes and ill-chance leave scars more often than battles in anger, when they do not kill. Things go wrong so often, in the wild world away from the nest.

But before they can strike again, as Toothless struggles to reclaim his balance, as frightened suddenly of the water as of the humans and their sharp-biting weapons, a loud human voice as deep as thunder shouts angry things, commanding, and there are no more arrows.

Close to the bubbling water the feeling of fear is worse, not of a predator's hunger but of a pull like falling with broken wings, like the inevitability of slipping from a sheer cliff-face of treacherous ice when claws will not catch, and they both feel it so intensely that there is no need to discuss what to do next.

Finally obeying their instincts, they retreat, back into the storm, more willing to face the lightning and the cold of the rain than well-armed human fighters or the presence lurking beneath the strange ships.

* * *

It is a long time again before they find somewhere else to land, and if they were not so tired – frightened, discouraged, body-weary and heart-weary – they would try to fly further, searching for another refuge.

There are no humans on the back of the ship with the colorful wings when they find it again. There is no one to see dragon and dragon-man, bedraggled and exhausted, set down on its back.

Toothless lands inelegantly, uncaring that humans might hear his paws as he drops to the ship's back rather than hovering and landing lightly. From other adventures he knows that many ships have a belly that humans can hide in; there is an inside to them like human nests and the places they make to keep captive dragons in. If the ship's humans are all hiding in its belly they probably do not want to come out in the rain to chase _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ away, and if they try then they will not get far. Humans are awkward on their back legs, and the ship is rolling and thrashing so much that even Toothless with his claws sunk into the wood feels as if he might fall.

The black dragon drops into a low slink to keep his balance against the ship's movement and they skulk behind a pile of holding-things in search of a hiding place. He understands that the things are tied down because Hiccup knows how to tie things, and they both recognize nets, so the things are not supposed to move.

It is not a good den – the rain and the wind are cold and wet, and waves lap over the side sometimes – but it is more solid beneath their feet than water as cold as ice.

Toothless feels his Hiccup- _beloved_ climb down from his shoulders as he settles down in a small space between the holding-things and the side of the ship. Wrapping his tail around them to hide it from view, he raises one wing to let Hiccup crawl in and curl up at his side, huddling together for reassurance. When Toothless puts his nose under the wing their breathing warms them.

In the darkness Hiccup presses his face against his beloved-companion's jaw and whimpers. _What now?_ he asks in the softest of whistles. _Scared me scared us danger worry flock us danger confused don't-understand strange._ His dragon's voice turns darker, and Toothless can feel him snarl. _Angry worry dragon-kin frustrated trap-danger-signal what? what?_ He trails off into a low dark moan of _failure_.

The black dragon wraps himself around his dragon-feral partner just a little bit tighter. _No,_ he refuses, and thrums _reassurance_ until Hiccup's whimpers of distress and frustration and fear even out into an exhausted sigh.

 _You sleep_ , Toothless urges as the ship bucks beneath them and the wind makes its wings flap and creak, reminding him unpleasantly of the aches in his own abused wings. Flying in storms is only fun when it is their choice, when there is a good place to launch from and a good place to land and a warm cave to hide away in until they are dry again. Flying in storms when there is no escape is no fun at all. _Safe here_.

He supposes he deserves Hiccup's snort of disbelief. They both know that there is nothing safe about a human ship, especially when they just tonight attacked these humans and burned their nest and chased them away. It feels like a very long time ago, as if they spent many endless winter nights, when the sun only wakes to stretch and go back to sleep, in the storm. As soon as there is somewhere to go they will have to leave quickly.

Hiccup nudges his nose against Toothless' with a _whuff_ of amusement. He wriggles out from the enveloping wing to pin down the bigger dragon's head – it takes all his body to do it – and raises his head high, glaring defensively at what turns out to be the side of the ship just a breath away from his snub nose.

 _Protecting,_ he says.

It is at once a joke and entirely serious. Toothless _whuff_ s along with him because Hiccup is so much smaller and the idea of a small dragon protecting a bigger one is about as silly as a human ship being a safe place for them to sleep. But he purrs _love-you love-you trust happiness contentment yes me-protected safe yes laughing laughing good_ because he knows Hiccup means it absolutely. They have fought to protect each other so many times that they could not remember all of their adventures if they tried, although they have told many of them as stories to their flock-family. That Hiccup will protect Toothless and Toothless will fight for Hiccup is as obvious as the paw on this side of his body fighting to protect the one on the other side.

It is a joke because it is obvious. It is serious because it is true. Toothless purrs his amusement and flicks one ear-flap so that it smacks that upturned nose.

Hiccup snaps at the offending ear-flap without much intent to bite, squirming around to pursue it, and Toothless ducks his head to drop the dragon-man onto the ground of the ship.

With his other half safely bundled away under his wing again, warmed by the brief tussle and comforted by the physical reassurance that touch and playing together always brings them, Toothless surveys the parts of the ship he can see through the protection of the holding-things as if they were hiding-behind rocks. There are still no humans out in the rain, but when he sets his jaw against the wood he can feel movement from beneath it, vibrating in his senses like the heartbeats or pawsteps of running prey. The reminder makes him tense, just a bit, and Hiccup rests a paw over his ribs, responding immediately.

Toothless decides to relax so that his other half will too, tucking his nose back under his wing with a sigh. He keeps the edge of his hearing on alert, listening for the approach of humans or for the end of the storm, which is still lighting up the clouds with bright flashes and shaking them with thunderclaps.

The two of them have been wandering since they were old enough to fly out of range of the nest and feel comfortable sleeping away from the safety of the flock, exploring by whim and chance and endless curiosity. Perhaps when the storm lets up and the ship stops flying away like a leaf tossed into the place with the updrafts – this is a favorite chasing-catching game – they will wake up to find themselves somewhere familiar.

In his sleep, Hiccup whimpers and his paws reach out for something, scratching lightly but not finding it in the expanse of Toothless' wing, and settle for wrapping around one of the dragon's claws instead.

Occasionally they even dream each other's dreams, and Toothless can easily guess what his beloved has lost.

After the storm, they'll figure out where they are and get back in the air.

And then they can go get their friends back.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	3. Chapter 3

_**Stormfall,**_ **Part Three**

"I," says Stoick the Vast, "am never going to get used to this."

His village is full of dragons, and no one is fighting anyone else…any more than usual, that is. Just the usual squabbles that go along with their average morning, with most of the village turned out to help pick up and set to rights the mess that the storm from last night made of the various half-constructed buildings that have sprung up across town. But the dragons that, not too long ago, would have been responsible for the damage are now crowded in alongside the humans, calling out to each other and to some of the humans and even, in some case, helping out. The Vikings of Berk are strong people, but a single Monstrous Nightmare can lift a lot of weight. The dark green-and-brown dragon is hovering over a pile of collapsed timbers, ropes clutched firmly in its long claws, as the people below wrap the other ends of the ropes around that pile. At a gesture from one of them, the Nightmare beats its wings, rising slowly up into the air and bringing the trussed-up heap of wood with it.

Somehow, the oddest thing about that is the noise that Sven makes as one of his precious sheep is revealed, huddled under the debris. People laugh as it races into his arms bleating pathetically, and while one Zippleback head turns to follow its movement, not a single dragon tries to eat it.

"Aye," Gobber agrees with him, but it's that special sort of agreement that really means Gobber thinks he's totally wrong. Stoick is familiar with this tone, and glares at him.

"What?" Gobber protests. "Things are better than they used t' be, surely? Wasn't it an easier winter, wi' dragons in every home and napping in the Great Hall like the biggest hearths a man could ask for? Didn't they send that Outcast ship packin' twice as fast as it'd landed, and all for the price of people feedin' 'em now and then? And let me tell ye, Stoick, it's a right sight easier keeping the forge going with a dragon puffing at it. Good thing, too. I was halfway through tryin' to make a bellows for my arm, and it wasn't going too well."

Having been treated to several detailed descriptions of this failed prosthetic, Stoick would welcome the dragons into the daily life of the village on that alone. If he never hears about that bellows again, it will be too soon.

"And they do help make cleaning up go a lot quicker, t' be sure."

"I don't know if I'd call what they're doing helping, exactly," Stoick grumbles halfheartedly. _Helping_ is a generous description. Sometimes they're just getting in the way, maybe more often than not, watching people with the unblinking fascination of reptiles.

They will watch a woman wielding a hammer, building a fence, for hours. Perhaps it's just that they don't understand the point of a fence, but they will devote equal attention to a child pounding nails into walls at random, and just as much to the child's parent taking the hammer away. A man sitting out in the sun, patching a soapstone bowl with iron staples, has already attracted an audience of Gronkles, all indifferent to the men cursing at them as they try to make their way past with a long roof-beam balanced on their shoulders.

The task is made no easier by the giggling little girl riding on one end of it, hugging a Terrible Terror as if she intends to wring the fire right out of it, or the flock of children running along behind, screaming to be picked up for similar rides. They manage to be almost louder than the swarm of Terrors trying to get at the snacks the little girl is trying to feed her glutted pet.

For every Zippleback being used as a ladder, there is at least one whose only contribution is to give the twins someone other than a human to squabble with. The Zippleback seems to be winning without even fighting back.

"It just all changed so fast," continues Stoick. "One day we're fighting to the death, the next we're living together?"

He ignores Gobber's contribution of: "I've known some marriages like tha', mostly worked out fine." His grumbling is unenthusiastic at best, but it hides some very real concern.

"I'm not sure I can keep up," he confides in Gobber, whom he has always trusted to give him good advice, or at least to keep him thinking. "I'm a war chief. That's what I was raised to be. That's what I know how to do. What do I do with this?"

His wave takes in the entire village and everyone in it, human and dragon, at peace. A peace he never thought would happen. It's the wrong peace, in a way. Stoick has lived all his life under the assumption that the only peace in his time would be if his people hunted down the nest the raiding dragons sprung from and wiped them out, or if he and all his people finally starved, clinging to their land to the end. He'd never imagined that there might be a third way.

"Round everyone up and chase that lunatic Dagur out of the Archipelago?"

Stoick snorts. "Dagur isn't a war. Dagur is a headache."

"Well," Gobber shrugs, "that's what ye have Astrid for. Figuring out the dragons is the lass's job."

With no surviving child of his own – as far as he knew, then – Stoick has been training Astrid as his heir ever since she was a little girl, and he has rarely been as grateful for her as he has been over the past year, ever since the dragons came to Berk to stay. She's willingly adopted them as her project, going at the problem of making humans and dragons get along with her briskly effective mixture of practicality, a knack for people, and determination to make things work no matter whose head she has to rip off and whose throat she has to stuff it down.

Astrid has been developing into a new style of leader, adapting to the strange new world they've all found themselves in, and Stoick has to admit that he wouldn't have thought of the approach she's taken to making sure humans and dragons get along.

She doesn't train dragons, not primarily. She trains humans.

Dragons are crazy, Astrid explained her strategy to him once, and they do what they want. Humans are also crazy, but at least they speak the same language as her.

She tells humans to "make friends". That way, she believes, the dragons want to help their human friends, and the all-important command "no" has an impact, because dragons, like people, don't like to disappoint their friends. It's easier than hitting them with an axe, Astrid says, and you go through fewer dragons…and axes…and limbs.

Stoick had been surprised to overhear her using him as an example in one of her impromptu lessons, convened at the scene of a fight after she'd broken it up, luckily before anyone got hurt. "Be the chief," Astrid had said. "It's like the way Stoick leads," she'd told her audience. "Mostly he shouts rather than hits people when he disapproves of something stupid you've done, but you listen because you trust and respect him, right? That's why he's a good leader. You listen to me because you trust and like me, not because I'm going to hit you if you don't."

She'd quickly added, "Although I will hit you, if it comes to that."

Astrid, Stoick thinks, might have more faith in him these days than he does in himself.

He knows how to be the chief of a village at war, trying to keep his people back from the crumbling ledge of survival. Before they made peace with the dragons – before peace was made for them – Stoick had been used to having absolute control over his people. Well, as absolute as being chief over a town full of brawling, arguing, contrary, stubborn, shortsighted, warrior Vikings could ever be. His word was the law, he was the power, and he understood his role: to keep everyone alive for as long as possible, and to fight off their enemies.

That control was taken away from him a year ago, and he's never quite sure if he really has it back, leaving him only supposedly in charge of this strangely peaceful world.

Stoick isn't sure he remembers how to live at peace.

But he has vowed to keep this peace, however strange. He will work with dragons rather than fight them. He will order the fishing fleet to set aside portions of their catch to feed the dragons who live alongside his people. He will give Astrid access to whatever supplies she needs to make a better dragon saddle, and tell off anyone who thinks she's crazy for riding on the back of that tame Nadder of hers. He'll even pet the beast when it shuffles up to him, bobbing plaintively and chirping for attention, and do no more than scowl at it when it gets stroppy with him in imitation of its mistress. He'll argue down the people who, regular as sunup, complain about Gronkles napping in the square or tagging along behind a team building a bridge to gulp down the pieces of rock they shear off the cliff-face in their work.

He won't shudder at the sight of a Zippleback picking people up by the backs of their tunics and lifting them, two by two, to the peak of a roof to fix the hole knocked in it by a flying barrel. He won't stare in disbelief as Spitelout brandishes a fist at a Nightmare that looks at him as if he's paying it a lavish string of compliments rather than scolding it for sending those barrels flying in the first place. He'll accept Astrid climbing to her Nadder's back and flying off, rather than running, to Gothi's high-stilted hut to retrieve some medical supplies so that the diminutive healer can treat the torn-open hand of a woman who was showing off by juggling a set of knives to impress her sisters and missed a catch.

It hasn't been easy, or painless, or perfect. Not a day and a night together have gone by when he hasn't wanted, at least once, to pick up an axe and chase every dragon in sight away from the village until they have in some way made amends for all the pain and grief they caused Stoick's tribe for so long.

But Stoick believes that if he shows willing, and tries hard enough, maybe one day he will earn his son's trust.

This peace is Hiccup's legacy – the son he thought was dead for so long, the son Stoick had mourned for and given up hope for, the son who had survived and returned to his birthplace as something other than human.

His son has taken another path, choosing to remain with the dragons who had become his family, but Stoick will keep Hiccup's work here intact, in his honor.

Hiccup and his Night Fury companion have returned to Berk a couple of times since then, and every time Stoick has tried to regain more and more of what they should have been: a family. There is little love lost between them, still, but Hiccup is not just Stoick's only son but the chief's last link to his beloved Valka, who he knows now is truly beyond his reach, dead years ago at human hands.

Valka would have wanted them to be a family again, surely. She would have wanted her son – their son – perhaps their _sons_ , as Hiccup has made clear that any relationship with him must include the dragon Toothless, as well, because Toothless had also been, in some way, Valka's child – to have a home here.

He knows it is a task that will take a lifetime. He knows it may never be complete, that his wild son may never fully trust him, and that the gulf between them may be too deep.

But Berk is full of dragons that have learned to trust humans enough to live alongside them. These dragons and these Vikings were bitter enemies not long ago. Men and women who couldn't see a dragon without running at it with a sword today rap inquisitive noses with bare knuckles and then pet them instead. Children who would have been learning to fear dragons play fearlessly around them, running a complicated and ever-moving obstacle course over Gronkle backs and under Nadder feet. Astrid's Stormfly has scars that Astrid herself put there, when they were dragon-fighting trainee and pit dragon, and the Nadder dotes on her like a hen with a chick.

So Stoick has hope that a boy who grew up as a wild dragon might yet be tamed, if he is patient.

One of the women fixing the roof breaks into Stoick's reverie with cries of, "A sail! A sail! Sail on the horizon!" She stands on tiptoe, balancing precariously and shading her eyes with one hand, waving with the other. The Zippleback on the ground rears up onto its hind legs to put one nose against the small of her back, keeping her from falling, and she lowers her waving hand to brace herself on its horn instead.

"There ye go," says Gobber, "that'll be Dagur. Good."

"Why in Thor's name is that good?"

"Ye wanted someone to fight, didn't ye? Besides," he goes on, stepping out of reach as Stoick growls audibly at him, "the lad doesn't learn, does 'e? He tries another raid, we might have the fleet up to full strength again. First time since my grandpappy's days, that'll be. The man never shut up about how we should ha' been building more ships rather than shorin' up buildings. Right up until one o' them buildings fell apart on him."

Ever since the dragons stopped raiding the various tribes of the Archipelago, those tribes have taken up raiding each other, like sand sliding inevitably back into a hole. It had often been said, during the war, that if they weren't fighting dragons they'd just be fighting each other instead, and this has proven as true in practice as it had sounded.

Fortunately, Dagur and his Berserkers haven't adapted to dragon-assisted defenses at all. The first time the Berserker fleet had shown up in Berk's harbor and been met with dragons soaring over them, burning sails and scorching the breeches of anyone they spotted on deck, Dagur's howls of pure outrage had been audible all the way up in what passes for the town square.

Dagur treats any turn of events he doesn't like as a personal offense, and throws tantrums accordingly. His habit of pushing underperforming people off their own ships when they retreated (or didn't shoot down dragons fast enough, or pointed out that there was now a catapult aimed at them) hasn't proven very successful. Berk has gotten some good ships out of the last couple of complete routs.

The fleet as a whole has also benefited from the fact that the people of Berk aren't using up as many supplies in rebuilding the village all the time now that dragons don't keep trying to burn it down. Now they're just making occasional repairs after nasty weather, like this morning, and after, well, normal Viking wear and tear. For once in living history the village is growing. They've been rebuilding things that needed rebuilding properly, putting up new buildings, getting all the bridges fixed. There's half a ship being patched up on one side of the square, a casualty of this spring's regatta.

To no one's surprise, the race got seriously competitive this year. Stoick is pretty sure that using dragons is, in some way, cheating, although there doesn't seem to be anything in the rules about it. It would help if anyone had ever written the rules down, so instead disagreements about the regatta always devolve into arguments about half-remembered, half-invented precedent, spiced up by plenty of insults and threats.

And anyway, cheating is expected. Half the competition of the regatta, just like everything else around here, is to cheat better than everyone else.

Thus the outbreak of laughter at Dagur's outraged howls of "That's _cheating!_ " about dragons defending Berk. Cheating is a proud and noble…well, proud…well, _established_ …tradition.

The laughter had carried down to the bay, and hadn't improved Dagur's mood at all. One of these days the man will just explode, and Stoick is vaguely hoping to be there to watch.

Astrid has returned from her errand for Gothi, and when she hears the shouts she leaps right back into Stormfly's saddle, heading up into the air to check things out. Several people call out to them cheerfully as they fly away, waving. Several more pick up the nearest weapon, just in case. Inevitably, arguments break out about who gets what weapon.

Stoick watches her go, shaking his head slightly in shopworn bafflement, then steps in to break up a fight over a double-headed axe before it ends up in both their heads. He ends up claiming it for himself because neither man will back down, slinging the carry-strap for it over his shoulder and separating the quarreling duo by threatening to pick them both up and toss them in opposite directions.

It takes a few minutes before dragon and rider return. The first thing they do is take a dive down towards the harbor to talk to the people who have headed down there just in case the ship is friendly and approved to land. First to greet newcomers means first to get whatever news they're carrying, or first dibs on trade items, or just first to see new faces visiting their island.

Stormfly comes in for a landing by the forge, and Stoick hands off weapons distribution to Gobber while he goes to get her report.

"It's not Dagur, luckily for him," Astrid reports, dismounting easily from the Nadder's back. Stormfly turns her head to follow her, and her rider keeps one hand on her nose for reassurance. "No combat flying today, girl." To Stoick, she resumes, "If he leers at me one more time, I will not be responsible for what happens next."

Stoick will back her up on that, when that happens. He doesn't like the way Dagur looks at her any more than she does.

"Remember those dragon hunters that landed here a couple of years ago?"

He does, actually. "Yes, I do. Now, what was that man's name…?"

Ruffnut tears past, shrieking, "Eret-son-of-Eret!" at the top of her lungs. Astrid puts out a foot and trips her matter-of-factly, sending her flying.

"Wheeee!" Ruffnut screams, entirely undeterred by the brand-new ditch she's fetched up at the end of.

"Hah!" Tuffnut declares, hard on her heels as usual. "Bet he won't even recognize you with your face full of dirt. Oh wait. You always look like that. Bet he won't recognize you anyway."

"Will so! I wrote my name on all my favorite muscles."

"Yeah, and you spelled it wrong. You should look like this all the time so he knows who you are!" Tuffnut assumes a slack-jawed expression of witless adoration that looks like a poleaxed yak.

Ruffnut snarls and throws a clod of dirt at her brother's conveniently wide-open mouth. As he spits and splutters, she leaps at him and starts trying to force-feed him handfuls of grass. The Zippleback that's taken to following them around trots over to watch, heads weaving back and forth to follow the struggling twins until the two necks are tied in a creditable slipknot.

"That's the one," says Stoick.

He finds the sight of the dragon hunter and his crew making their way up to the town square of Berk much more entertaining than the everyday insanity that is the twins. The hunters are staring around as if they cannot believe their eyes at the sight of dragons lolling across roofs and curled up in wagons.

They look as if they were hit hard by the storm. There are a couple of people on Berk who have a gift for predicting the weather, and they had correctly said that the worst of it was going to miss the island. Sodden, stained furs and slumping, tired bodies suggest that the hunters were not so lucky. Every man of them seems to have a bruise visible somewhere, and more people are limping than walking tall. They're all armed, which is commonplace among Vikings and otherwise unremarkable, but the bows and spears and sheathed swords are getting more use as crutches than as offensive weapons.

Only their leader is making a pretense of remaining unaffected by either exhaustion or the strangeness of the dragon population, and already Stoick can feel himself bristle at the man's presence. They didn't get along very well the last time Eret, son of Eret, and his people were here, and time has not lessened Stoick's dislike of him as an arrogant, swaggering rogue who talks bigger than he fights and can't keep his nose out of things the chief considers none of his business.

Despite the outwardly confident demeanor, Eret looks like someone who desperately wants to get drunk but knows he cannot, that whatever he does will only make the visions worse. He looks at the dragons of Berk as if seeing ghosts, denying that they're real.

Stoick has seen this look before, on Trader Johann the first time he returned to find a Berk inhabited by dragons, on an ambassador from the Outcasts when Alvin offered to call off hostilities before they really started, on a wandering family from a small ship that had gotten far off their intended course through poor navigation, but Eret has a particularly bad case of it.

He leads his crew into the center of town and comes to a stop facing the chief. The first time he tries to speak no words make it out.

When he tries again, it comes out as, "Uh…you seem to have a bit of a dragon problem…"

"Yeah!" Ruffnut shouts from behind the bulk of the Zippleback. "Barf and Belch won't get their fat butt out of my way!" The two-headed dragon/s seem to have decided that keeping her away from Eret is the latest game of keep-away, a game _everyone_ wishes the twins hadn't taught that particular dragon/s.

"We did. We solved it," Stoick answers the implied question, giving nothing away just yet. An audience of sorts is beginning to collect around them as people abandon their mostly finished repair work for the fresh entertainment of strangers come to visit. The clump of hunters might as well be tied together, though, so closely are they sticking to each other, and one or two weapons have been lowered to point outward, defensively.

This is probably in response to the handful of dragons who have also come to see what's going on, or Stoick would be a lot less hospitable. He's mildly impressed that the dragons are starting to recognize when they're not wanted, and some of them go off in a huff like rejected cats. Others stick around to whimper to particular friends, looking for sympathy.

"I'm here to ask for safe harbor," Eret finally gets out. He tears his eyes away from the dragons mixing casually with the Vikings and looks at Stoick again. "My ship was damaged in the storm, but we can trade supplies for repairs."

He tries to grin and make a joke; it comes out as a grimace. "I was going to offer you our dragon-hunting skills in trade, but I see they're not needed anymore."

Stoick knows fishing for an explanation when he hears one, but the wary war chief in him is reluctant to give away information he doesn't have to, especially when it is, at heart, so personal. The dragon hunter will almost certainly hear a dozen different versions of the story a dozen times over by the end of the day, but nothing about this man has endeared him to the chief.

They've been trading partners, in the past, but they're not allies, and they're not friends.

Still, he can't see any reason to refuse outright. "We can fix your ship," Stoick agrees, beckoning Gobber over – the smith will know better than anyone what needs to be done to it, and he's a canny negotiator. "We'll work out a trade. But," Stoick adds, staring the man down, "these dragons are ours, and you're not to hunt them. Understood?"

How strange that he should be defending dragons. But this is the world he lives in now, one where if he's chief of Berk then he's chief of everyone who lives there, human and dragon both. As the kind of chief he wants to be, he makes note of the acquisitive glint in Eret's eye, jumpy with exhaustion as he is, as if he's eyeing up Berk as a target.

"Understood," Eret says, far too smoothly, and holds out his hand to shake on it.

Stoick doesn't get a chance to take it, because that's when chaos falls out of the sky.

A terrible high-pitched scream cuts through Berk like a knife, climbing up the scale towards a sound like the death-scream of a demon, and before Stoick can so much as blink there is a raging Night Fury in the center of town.

Toothless rears up from his pounce between Stoick and the dragon hunters, whipping around to spread his wings and slash at the newcomers with sharp claws. Fire boils in his throat, and from this close Stoick forgets for a moment he ever considered that this creature could be tamed, could be part of a dimly envisioned someday-family. Lightning and death, indeed.

His first instinct is still to recoil, to get to a safer distance before the very essence of his lifelong enemy, a monster among dragons, can strike him down. Without conscious thought, a lifetime of training and habit steps in and snatches him away from the night-black dragon – and its rider.

When his mind catches up to his body Stoick can see the dragonish shape perched on the Fury's shoulders and hear his son's voice joined with his dragon-twin in eerie, deadly harmony as they stalk back and forth and make aborted leaps at Eret and his hunters, who have fallen back into an even tighter cluster than before in an instant standoff. Spears and swords and arrows answer Toothless' bared fangs, and terrified screams and wails clash with the howling of enraged dragons.

"It followed us!" someone shouts. Someone else is chanting something in a language Stoick doesn't recognize, but it sounds like a desperate prayer. A third voice is screaming about curses, about hexes, about hauntings.

The people of Berk have already scattered to a safer distance. They've become much more comfortable with dragons…but maybe not so much this one. Nightmares and Gronkles and Nadders they understand. They've fought those dragons all their lives, and they're at least familiar.

A Night Fury, even one that occasionally lands here and flits around the edge of town, is something else entirely, and _no one_ knows what to make of Hiccup, who to most of the village is still a half-glimpsed tall tale.

"You!" Stoick picks out Eret's voice from the din, almost as furious as that oscillating dragon-scream. "Ghost or godling or whatever you are, stand and face me, demon!"

Astrid leaps into the fray from where she was watching the brief negotiations from the sidelines. "Hiccup, what are you doing here?" she demands, raising and lowering a hand as if trying to work up the nerve to touch Toothless to get his attention. "What's wrong?" It has absolutely no effect except to add another voice to the chaos, and she's all but drowned out under the angry yowling of dragon and dragon-boy.

Stoick can't let whatever fight this is happen. He's seen what that lethal blast of battle-fire can do to buildings, and is in no hurry to see what it can do to people. He doesn't want to see his son become a killer. Even if it's Toothless' flames that end someone's life, Stoick has no doubt that it would be with Hiccup's consent.

And it's a fight they're clearly working themselves up to. The only thing keeping the black dragon from leaping at Eret's crew is that the pair of them are yowling an angry, protesting tirade, and the hunters have all drawn weapons. Every blade is pointed straight at dragon and rider both. Even if some of those blades are held by hands that tremble as their owners moan in terror and pray to distant gods, someone's blood is about to be shed.

"That's enough!" Stoick roars. It takes all his courage to step between the hunters and the dragons, with fire on one hand and steel on the other, and all his determination to believe that neither side will strike him down. He grabs the nearest weapon – a spear wavering around his middle; a single thrust and it will be his blood on the well-trodden earth – and wrenches it from its wielder's hands before throwing it to the ground and keeping it there with one boot. "Stop!" he shouts at Hiccup and Toothless, dragon pacing back and forth in stuttering leaps and rider seemingly as much a part of the dragon as its lashing tail.

"Hiccup, stand down! Stop now!"

For a moment he wonders if he's miscalculated, if the wildness in them is stronger than the tentative bond between father and dragon-son. He's not actively threatening them, and they know him, so he believes they won't simply strike him aside and do as they please. He thinks he can hold them at bay, but if he's guessed wrong… It's a terrible shock to see Hiccup this angry, because there's no humanity in him now. Nothing of the feral, strange boy playing on the shoreline, or the wary but curious wild thing exploring the village and startling at every human eye turned towards him, or even of the warrior who returned to Berk to end an endless war.

No, this is Hiccup as Stoick first saw him after twenty years lost, a frightened animal caring nothing for the sound of any human voice, teeth bared and features distorted into a dragon's snarl, bright green eyes cold.

"Enough!" Stoick repeats. Knowing he's not going to get anything intelligible out of his son until the boy calms down enough to remember how to speak a few words of a language he doesn't naturally use, he turns instead to Eret. He realizes only now that the man has been talking all along.

"What's going on here?" he demands.

"…not a demon at all, are you?" Eret is saying, mocking and cruel and angry but with a clear note of fear in his voice. "You're just a man all dressed up to look like a dragon. Not even that! A boy, playing pretend! You and that creature of yours, running around and messing with people – you nearly got my crew killed! My people! We nearly drowned out there because of that little stunt of yours! Well get this through your crazy head, dragon kid – come over here and face me without your pet Night Fury, and I'll teach you to play tricks like that!"

"Hey!" Stoick roars. "Watch your mouth!"

"That mad little brat burned down my base and drove us into the storm!" Eret yells back at him, and if Stoick had wanted to hit the man with a plank before, it's now become one of his fondest dreams. "No one does that to me and mine! Least of all some rabid kid who doesn't know the difference between dragons and people!"

Behind him, Stoick can hear Astrid trying to get through to Hiccup and Toothless. Except for their long-lost mother, she's perhaps the human who has spent the most time with them, and she probably knows them best of anyone here. So if anyone has a chance of making them listen, it's her. It's not a competition, but Stoick sometimes resents that they're more willing to interact with her just because she's smaller and less intimidating. Astrid is plenty intimidating when she wants to be.

"Hiccup, it's okay, it's all right," she's saying. "Toothless? Hey, boy. Easy there. Come on. Stormfly, you want to help out any? Come on, girl, I could really use your help, you can talk to them better than I can…no? Gods damn it, Stormfly, the one time I really need you… Oh, forget it. Hiccup, listen to me, please!"

"Get out of my way," Eret snarls at Stoick. "I'm going to kick that crazy dragon kid's tail so hard…"

"Shut up," Stoick snarls back, "or I'll stand aside and let them tear you to smug little shreds." Angry as he is, he's half-tempted to do just that. Part of him knows he's protecting his only son as best he can – the rest just wants to pay the hunter back for the insults he's slinging around, outraged and offended on his child's behalf.

There's a certain amount of crazy that's perfectly normal around here. Sticking to your ground while dragons try to burn or starve you off it? That's an acceptable form of crazy. Going into battle screaming and waving and biting through your enemy's shield to get to him? That's fine. The twins' brand of crazy, which has very little connection to reality and causes minor incidents of destruction and chaos that mostly affect the twins and, most of the time, only inconvenience everyone else? That's annoying but manageable. Dagur's sort of crazy, that starts battles he can't win and goes into rages when he inevitably loses? That's expected; they're not called Berserkers for nothing.

But there are other kinds of madness – true, deep madness that means something is irreparably wrong with someone, that doesn't just play fast and loose with reality for the fun of it but actually can't see reality for the fantasies that play out only in the mind, that strikes down people at the whim of cruel gods, for which there is no remedy and no cure. This is what Eret sees when he looks at Stoick's son. That there is something deeply wrong with his child.

Stoick refuses to believe that. Hiccup is different. Hiccup is _weird_ , fair enough. Hiccup thinks he's a dragon – but then what else was he supposed to think, growing up as he must have?

His son has chosen his own path. But his son is not mad.

Finally, Stoick catches a recognizable sound from over his shoulder, and he silently asks all the gods to bless Astrid, for about the thousandth time just this year.

"Nuh!" Hiccup shouts. "Nuh herr!"

 _No_ , Stoick translates, _Not here_.

"Do you know how many months of work you ruined?" Eret shouts past Stoick, and is answered with a roar. "It's been you all along, hasn't it? I thought we were bloody cursed, and we were! Cursed with a crazy little do-gooder dragon-loving freak!"

Stoick manages not to punch him, but it's a close-run thing. Instead he tries to figure out what's going on, because then maybe he can solve it without anyone dying in the dirt. (And then he can find somewhere nice and quiet to punch the lights out of Eret until he can't talk anymore.) From Eret's ranting he guesses that they were hunting dragons and Hiccup and Toothless objected and chased them away.

And then the hunters ended up here. Here on Berk, where Stoick has been trying to make his wild son and his dragon-brother feel welcome and safe. No wonder they're upset.

"Um," a new voice cuts in. "Boss?"

"Not now," Eret snaps, still glaring poison.

"Boss?" the voice persists.

"I'm busy!"

"Boss!" the voice wails.

"Oh, what?" Eret finally breaks, looking away and back at his crew.

Stoick follows his gaze to the man pointing upwards…and then, like everyone else, looks up.

Every rooftop. Every ledge. Every gable. Dragons fill the spaces in between buildings, and perch on barrels, and lurk under wagons.

This must be every dragon on Berk, or near enough. Stoick recognizes some of them, some of the ones who take an interest in Berk, who have particular human friends, and even riders. But there are others, still.

Even the lazy, the silly, the stupid – even the Terrors!

Their heroes called them, and they have come to their defense.

When Stoick looks down again he looks at Hiccup, and sees on his face a readily recognizable smirk.

When he stepped between fire and steel only minutes before, Stoick had been fleetingly afraid, reacting to the immediate threat. But this, this is something more.

In moments, his son has raised an army, snatching control away from Stoick once more.

This is what Stoick has feared ever since dragons and humans began to coexist: that he is no longer truly the chief in Berk. That he commands only at the whim of his dragon-wild son. That he has lost control of his world and will never have it back again. That he is, at the crux, powerless.

How can he be a chief in this new world if his ability to protect his people can be taken away so quickly? How could he have imagined that they were safe? They have been entertaining monsters at the feast, and now the feast has ended. The war is back on.

Worse still is the renewed knowledge of the absolutely alien nature of his wild son. If he should ever take against Berk –!

His world would burn. Stoick would be as helpless on that day as he was once before, one summer morning when the lives and deaths of all of Berk rested in Hiccup's dragon-clawed hands.

He does not truly believe that his son would turn against them, but it is a horror to see him command such a force so easily.

Once, for a very short while, Stoick hated Hiccup for what he wasn't. Now, he wonders if he must fear his son for what he is.

Hiccup may not be a leviathan of dragons like his "dragon chief" master is, but with his allies gathered around him, ready to strike at his command, Stoick is uncomfortably reminded of how formidable he truly is.

It's so easy to forget. There's always the temptation to see him as an animal, mostly a dragon, which is how he prefers to be, but therefore less than human. Stoick has seen him as something broken to be repaired, or pitied when he doesn't want to be fixed, when he can't be fixed.

And yet somehow, in the face of that show of force, Eret manages to run his mouth, and his words break the spell like a deluge of ice water.

"So this is where they all went!" Eret blurts. He turns to Stoick incredulously. "Did you think you could hide behind this thieving creature and get away with it? Do you even have any idea who you're stealing from? When Drago Bludvist finds out you have these dragons, he _will_ come for you, and his dragon-army will take them back even if he has to burn this island to ashes to get them."

* * *

All Astrid wants is for everyone to stop shouting so she can figure out what's going on, but she isn't particularly pleased by the near-silence when it happens.

There's something horribly familiar about staring down so many softly growling dragons. She had nightmares like this, as a little girl. She would dream about being cornered, running for her life across some unfamiliar landscape that changed when she wasn't looking, twisting and sliding out from underfoot until she slipped and fell inexorably into the gaping mouth of a gully. Sometimes in her dreams she screamed in fear. Other times she screamed in anger. Sometimes she just screamed, hoping someone would hear her. Not because she wanted them to come and find her – Astrid has known all her life that if anyone is going to get her out of dangerous situations, it's going to be her – but because she wanted them to know that she'd been there. To remember her.

And then, in the dreams, she would see movement in the darkness, long sinuous figures slinking down into the darkness with her, and a hundred eyes would open, and light up, and turn to look at her.

She hadn't been afraid of the dark, when she woke up shaking, or the fall, or even of the fangs and fire those dream-dragons could have threatened her with. No, it was the eyes that had terrified her, and the way they had looked at her.

Before this morning, she still hadn't been sure exactly how those imaginary dragons had looked at her, even if she had for some reason remembered a dream she hadn't had in years.

Now she knows.

The dragons surrounding the dragon hunters like a living wall of scales and claws are looking at them in just the way her dreams had, with the cool dispassion of predators in no hurry to strike down their prey, because there is nowhere for their prey to go. No chance that it will escape.

"All gods, Hiccup," she whispers, even though she doubts he's listening to her, "what did you _do?_ "

She answers her own question even as she asks it – he'd yelled for help, obviously.

She's been trying to get in close enough to touch Toothless, to slow him and his rider down, but she was taught very sharply not to do that, so instead she's been waving her hands around nearby hoping to break their focus on their enemies. She might have guessed that the two of them would have problems with dragon hunters, but how was anyone supposed to know that they were going to be here today? There's never any predicting when they're going to show up, and a couple times she thinks she's seen them on Berk but nowhere near the village. Only glimpses, through the undergrowth or vanishing behind an outcropping while she's out on an early-morning run or hunting wild boar from Stormfly's back, and she's never sure.

Eret's comment, not a word of which makes any sense to Astrid, still snaps through the haze of seeing her dream come to life, and the effect those words have on Stoick is like a smoldering bed of coals leaping into a roaring pyre.

"To arms!" Stoick bellows, unsheathing his axe and taking one giant step inside the hunter's guard and the range of his wavering sword to jam the heavy war-axe up under Eret's chin, forcing it up and baring the man's throat.

By the time the dragon hunter has gotten out a spluttering exclamation of, "What the –?" the people of Berk, relieved to have a direction they understand, have extracted themselves from the crowd of dragons and surrounded the rest of Eret's crew. They brandish their weapons in much steadier hands and shout in a ragged, wordless chorus that bleeds off some of the tension although not yet anyone's blood.

By the time Eret has gotten around to protesting, "Wait a minute!" all of his men have been disarmed, weapons snatched from their hands and turned against them. It means most of the Vikings hemming them in have something sharp in either hand, which is, honestly, how Berkians like it.

"What did you just say?" Stoick growls at Eret, levering the hunter's tattooed chin upwards until he has no choice but to meet the chief's eyes.

Astrid is almost impressed that Eret decides to bluff it out. "I said these dragons are stolen. I said you're in a rough few fathoms more of trouble than you bargained for."

Behind Stoick, Toothless warbles with what sounds like laughter. When Astrid looks over at him, she sees that his fangs have disappeared as his jaw lolls open into a dragon's smile at the sight of the Berkians taking their side. On his shoulders, Hiccup sits up alertly, watching Stoick threaten Eret, eyes wide with what looks like wonder. Beside the odd pair, Stormfly finally decides to get involved, dancing from foot to foot and chirping to them happily. The Nadder noses at Astrid, trying to get her to play along too, but for once Astrid has little desire to join Stormfly in one of her games.

Without warning, the black dragon crouches, tensing, and leaps into the sky like he's been thrown out of a catapult, disappearing into the sky almost as quickly as they'd arrived.

"Astrid!" Stoick commands, trusting that she'll understand him with nothing more than that.

She does. The instruction is _follow them_. Throwing herself into Stormfly's saddle as fast as possible, Astrid says, "Up, girl!" and holds on tight as the Nadder takes off after the Night Fury.

Except by the time they're in the air and Astrid has gotten her bearings again, that elegant dark shape is nowhere in sight, as if they've evaporated like the memory of a dream burned away in morning sunlight.

"Dammit," Astrid swears. "Where'd they go, girl? Can you find them?"

Stormfly understands the command _find_ , Astrid knows perfectly well. Teaching her that trick had been an entertaining month or so of collecting objects for hiding, showing them to Stormfly, and then handing them off to Fishlegs so that he could run off and place them somewhere. After Stormfly had gotten the hang of that – and the chicken-leg reward she got for successfully bringing back the bucket, or spindle, or quiver, or square of sailcloth, or toy ball – they'd moved on to more complicated tricks, and enlisted more people to pass the item from hand to hand, to make sure Stormfly wasn't just following Fishlegs' scent.

For a while, "hide and seek with Stormfly" had become quite a popular game, and Astrid thinks that that was one of the tricks that finally got some of the holdouts over to the "dragons are maybe okay" side of the room.

Finally Astrid had tested her on name recognition, sending her to track down people she knew on command.

"Find Hiccup!" Astrid commands her now, as they hover over Berk. She doesn't stop looking around with her own eyes, of course. How far could they have gotten? Where would they go? They just got here! "Find Toothless!"

Beneath her, Stormfly whines, hanging her head anxiously.

"Come on, girl, you can do it! Find them!"

Stormfly still refuses, going nowhere, not even trying, and Astrid still can't see them anywhere. Given the choice between staying up here trying to get Stormfly to do something she has no intention of doing, or landing again and watching the rest of the confrontation with the hunters play out, Astrid doesn't hesitate to order, "Down, girl."

When they land the situation has gotten no better. Stoick's face looks as if it has been carved out of stone and left out in the cold, glaring at the still-defiant Eret as if the man is a poisonous snake to be crushed underfoot.

But more than that, Astrid realizes, studying him closely. She knows her mentor well, and figuring out what he expects of her from the smallest of cues is one of her hard-won skills. The slightest twitch of an eyebrow can be the difference between "I don't understand why you just did what you did" and "I don't approve of what you did what you did", and she can tell by the way his beard bristles when he's desperately trying not to laugh at something someone has said in all earnestness, at someone who is expecting a serious answer from a serious chieftain.

Stoick isn't laughing now, and as well as she knows him, it still takes all her experience to pick out an expression she's seen only a handful of times her whole life so far.

Stoick is _scared_.

"Where did you find them?" he demands of Eret. "The Night Fury and his rider! What does Drago know about them?"

Eret sneers in his face. "What do you care?"

 _Because that's his only son, and Stoick loves him still_ , Astrid answers him silently. _Because he cares no matter how much it hurts, because he can't help it. Because the chief responsible for the well-being of an entire village still wants more than anything the burden of being a father to his son._

The expected words do not come, and the silence stretches on as Stoick struggles with an anger so deep it may well be choking him and a fear that Astrid still can't understand. The eyes of every human in the square, Viking and trapper alike, turn towards him, waiting for his answer.

Every Viking on Berk knows the story, of course. They know who the Night Fury's rider is, and what they don't know they've made up throughout the long winter and the fresh new start of spring.

Astrid has heard so many strange additions to the facts that they know, as much as they can know anything when their best witness doesn't speak their language beyond a few words, and it says something that the things the storytellers made up aren't always as strange as the truth. But the basics never change: _that's Stoick's long-lost son, and he believes himself a dragon._

The silence grows uncomfortable as Stoick and Eret stare each other down, and Astrid realizes suddenly that Stoick is not going to acknowledge his son.

She chokes off her cry of protest before it can escape her throat, knowing better than to undercut Stoick in a situation like this, with a battle threatening to break out in the square. It'll be a massacre if it does, though, because Eret is the last knot of defiance. His men are slumped against each other and making no attempt to reclaim their weapons, watching the drama work itself out just like anyone else.

But she knows for certain that Stoick loves his son dearly, for all his son is as wary and more so around him as any wild animal. Stoick has been a mentor and surrogate father to Astrid herself for long enough for Astrid to know that Stoick loves the role he plays, of father figure to the village and father figure to her, shaping and guiding and protecting his people. Learning that his only son had survived against all odds had done wonders for Stoick, and Astrid had seen it happen, watching a man wearing an aura of resigned grief like a cloak come through the fire of last summer to emerge with that cloak burned away and replaced with a lighter one, made perhaps of hope.

So many of their stories around here end darkly. Invariably, someone dies – heroically, or meaninglessly, or through their own overconfidence, or because of a cruel trick, or sacrificing themselves to slay an enemy, or taking an arrow to protect a comrade in arms. As long as they're reinventing everything Vikingdom has ever been about, learning to live in peace with their enemies, Astrid thinks they might want to start up a new story tradition, as well, and what better saga than one of reconciliation between Viking father and dragon son?

"Get them out of here!" Stoick says instead, not a word in response to Eret's question. "Put them in the cells and hold them there. Treat them well, but lock them up."

It probably doesn't take half of Berk to escort almost two dozen tired dragon-trappers and one shouting captain to Berk's excuse for a jail, but that's the parade they get. Some of the dragons tag along behind, watching the show as just another verse in the ongoing saga of Vikings Doing Everyday Things. Most of them slither off back to wherever they'd been and whatever they were doing before Hiccup and Toothless summoned them – a chilling thought, certainly, but it's buried beneath Astrid's outrage on their behalf at Stoick's denial, even in their absence, and a mingled curiosity and dread at the transformation that had come over her mentor at a single shouted name.

"You can't do this!" Eret yells as the mob drags him away, although they're amiable enough about it. "You have no idea what you're dealing with!"

"Awwww!" Ruffnut's voice is clearly audible over the hubbub of the mob. "Yeah, chief, you can't do this to my Eret! You can't put him in jail! … _hey_ , wait, if he's in the jail I'll always know where he is. Never mind! Cells! Cells now! Faster, everyone!"

Everyone more or less ignores her, except for Tuffnut, who starts mimicking everything she does and says, only a step and a beat behind and in a much more high-pitched shriek. It's not like Berk's cells are much more than an oversized drunk tank – to Astrid, everything on Berk seems a bit oversized, including the people, but then she's probably just small – and a place to store captives until they can be ransomed back by their own tribe. It hasn't been used for this purpose in centuries, because everyone was too busy fending off dragons to fight with each other very often. It's mostly for people who would be better off calming down in some nice, dark, enclosed space where other people can't come knock sticks and mugs against the bars and generally make their headaches much worse.

Oh wait. Scratch that last part. People totally do that.

* * *

Astrid follows the parade all the way to the cells, just to make sure the chief's orders about treating their prisoners well are being obeyed – including peeling Ruffnut off a besieged-looking Eret and handing her off to her Zippleback to be carried away, and Tuffnut too while she's at it – and while her back is turned Stoick vanishes with impressive stealth for a man about seven feet tall.

Undeterred, Astrid just turns to Stormfly and says, "Find Stoick, my girl."

It's such a useful trick when it works, and Stoick is one of the people Stormfly never gets wrong, not even once.

"Chief?" Astrid ventures, approaching him almost as gingerly as she'd approached the furious dragon-pair earlier. He's standing in what's left of the dragon-training pit, all alone.

It's not much of a dragon-training pit anymore. The gates to the pens are still blasted wide open, twisted into strange sculptures of wreckage and destruction and the end of a world. No one has dared touch them. The base of an elaborate contraption Gobber has been working on to raise and lower the chain netting covering the pit has been abandoned, half-completed while the smith waits on materials he can't find on Berk and that Johann hasn't returned with yet. That absurd dead shark the twins like to startle people with has gotten up here somehow, but it's no more out of place than the miniature flower garden someone has planted and carefully cultivated in a large box.

In the early spring, some of the shepherds got the bright idea to herd all their lambing ewes into the pit and keep them there so that the silly things wouldn't wander off and have their lambs on the edges of cliffs and then bleat pitifully for help. The shepherds didn't want to let inquisitive dragons anywhere near their flocks, and the dragons didn't want to go anywhere near the pit anyway, so they'd hauled bales of hay up ramps and across bridges several times a day by wagon. The remainder of that hay has piled up in drifts against the walls. Children have been playing hide and seek and ambush games in them, she knows. Not long ago, a rumor that there was an enormous rat's nest in one of them, somewhere, had resulted in mothers forbidding their children to play in them, and the children becoming wildly interested in digging through the haystacks looking for the rats.

Astrid had dealt with that by rounding up a flock of Terrible Terrors and setting them loose on the haystacks – Terrors are far too silly to associate anything bad with the pit, especially with small squeaky things to hunt.

She'd regretted it the next day when she'd been presented with pieces of dead rat by over-excited Terrors, all of which had to be told individually what good hunters they were before they would go away and take the bits with them. The parents had been grateful, though.

"Chief, what's going on?" Astrid demands to know. She tries to keep her question polite, but she's determined not to be put off. Anything that scares Stoick is something she needs to know about. She can't prepare for a problem if she doesn't know what it is. She can't protect their people if he's going to keep her in the dark.

He doesn't turn around, just keeps staring at the twisted remnants of the dragon pens.

"Drago Bludvist," he says, finally, his voice as dark as pitch.

"I take it the name's familiar?"

"I haven't heard of him in years, now. I would have been happy to never hear it again." At his sides, his fists clench.

"Drago Bludvist is a madman," Stoick goes on. Astrid settles herself on a haystack, first checking it carefully for rats, kids, Terrors, twin-set booby traps, damp spots from rain or worse, or all of the above.

She listens carefully as Stoick tells his story, looking at nothing but his shadow against the wall and seeing, she suspects, something else entirely. Another place. Another time.

"Years ago, there was a chiefs' moot. All the chieftains of the Archipelago, meeting in peace to discuss the dragon raids. Berk was holding its own, back then, if only barely, but other tribes – they weren't so lucky, if you can call what we were back then lucky.

"It wasn't a secret, the meeting. Word had gone out to all the tribes, and an invitation had gone with it that anyone with an idea could come to us and be heard fairly. And someone did.

"I don't know where he came from, or how he came to be in our waters. He spoke strangely, softly, but in a way that made people turn to listen and to stare. That was Drago Bludvist. A stranger from distant lands, wrapped in a dragon-skin cloak. He told us that he knew how to control dragons. That he knew the secret to stopping the war. That he would save us all – for a price.

"We offered him gold. We offered him all the silver his ship could carry. He laughed at us. What he wanted was power. He wanted to be the king of all the tribes of the Archipelago. He would save us, if we would bow down and swear to obey only him."

There hasn't been a king in the Archipelago since…ever. Astrid has never heard of such a thing. There are kings in other places, far away, but never here. How could one man or woman expect to rule over more than one place? How could she lead if she didn't know her people by name and family? How could one man remember all the troubles and quarrels and needs of more than a single village, and how would any leader know what was best for them if they didn't know that?

"I'm guessing the moot sent him away?"

"Aye," Stoick agrees grimly, "we would have. But we laughed at him first, every man of us, and he grew angry. Instead of promising to save us, he promised to damn us instead. He promised that without him, we would burn.

"And he raised his voice and shouted, where before he'd spoken only softly. The roof of the hall burst into flames, and dragons dived through the fire to guard his back as he left. And when he'd disappeared, those dragons burned the hall to ashes. I escaped. The others didn't."

The chief stops for a moment, struggling with the memories. It's clearly something he's tried to forget.

"So he really could command dragons?" Astrid asks. "I thought we were the only people who had figured that out. Well, us and Hiccup. …and I guess your lady Valka must have learned to do so." It's terribly risky, mentioning Valka to Stoick, but as far as Astrid can tell he doesn't take offense.

"They were wearing armor, those dragons. It was one of the strangest things I'd ever seen. It was as if he'd turned dragons into weapons, and turned them on us."

Astrid tries to imagine Stormfly in armor, and doesn't think the Nadder would like it much. She wouldn't do that to her dragon friend.

"I thought he'd left the north long ago. I thought he'd gone somewhere else to find people more easily swayed and subdued, after no one here wanted to be part of his schemes. I may be the last person left in the Archipelago who remembers the name of Drago Bludvist. The last one who knows what he is. I never thought of that before. Maybe that's why I've never heard even a whisper of him again. Or –"

When he doesn't go on, Astrid prompts, "Or?"

"Or maybe no one has heard anything about him because no one has ever returned from running into him."

Finally, Stoick turns to face her. His face is ashen, and for some reason this makes Astrid notice the grey creeping into his beard, strand by strand.

"Astrid, if he's back – if Drago's back, well, then, Drago uses dragons. I told Eret that these dragons were _ours_ , and Eret said that our dragons were _stolen_. Stolen from Drago. If he's been trapping and assembling a dragon army…"

If the dragons that responded to Hiccup's cries earlier were something out of her childhood nightmares, the idea of an army of dragons in armor, answering only to the command of someone who scares Stoick so badly, will be meat and drink for a whole new set of nightmares tonight.

"Gods, chief, if we had to fight something like that…"

"No," Stoick cuts her off. "It's not that. I mean, it is that, but…Astrid, you know how much Hiccup objects to people hurting dragons. If he and Toothless cross paths with Drago, they don't stand a chance, and I…"

Once again, he can't finish his thought.

"And you can't lose your son again," Astrid finishes it for him, not judging him, letting no note of sympathy or scorn trickle into her voice.

He doesn't deny it.

She tries to reassure him, knowing it's probably futile. "Well, Toothless won't let him come to any harm. He's got a Night Fury looking out for him, and you know how much Toothless loves him!"

"It won't be enough," says Stoick, and the conviction in his voice chills her almost more than his story.

Astrid thinks it over, but not for long. Stoick is scared, of this Drago, for his son, so there's only one thing to say.

"What can I do to help?"

* * *

 _To be continued._


	4. Chapter 4

_**Stormfall,**_ **Part Four**

Toothless spots the island in the distance by the flutter of movement above it, and changes course towards the land. At first he believes there are dragons flying above it, and he wonders if they will be friendly to traveling strangers who want only to land and rest for a while and perhaps hunt a bit in their territory. Not all dragons welcome strangers not of their flock. Good nesting places are to be protected, and when there is not enough for the flock to eat then it can be dangerous for Toothless and his Hiccup-beloved to approach a place where they are not known. In the hungry times when it is difficult to hunt because everything is hiding from the cold, they do not travel because they will not be welcomed in other places where they do not belong.

But when they get closer he can see that the fluttering is only birds, and birds are no threat. Even the big hunting birds that dive as quickly as dragons do and that fight with sharp claws to keep their prey from thieves are no real danger, although Toothless prefers not to start arguments with them.

He comes in low and careful, staying out of sight of any dragons that might have frightened the circling birds into the air. Tense and ready to veer away if they are attacked, he leaves it to Hiccup to watch the island below and find them a good place to land.

Hiccup signals _here down here look now_ as they pass over a river that runs through the island, down from the sharp broken stones that must have many hiding places in them. Toothless is glad of it. If he was hiding on this island, those stones would be where he would hide and wait in ambush.

When he lands Hiccup untangles himself from the flying-with and leaps from his shoulders, rolling in the grass to stretch out and then lie still with his face and throat turned up to the sun.

 _You?_ Toothless asks with a glance, padding around him until his shadow does not block the sunlight – it is good to roll in the sun, Toothless would like to roll in the sun too, but he can sense Hiccup's anxiety, that he is chasing shadows in his thinking and catching only bruises when he pounces at stone. _Worry you worry yes me-too me-too._ He noses at the dragon-man reassuringly. _Good promise yes no-worry us good_.

He truly believes that they can solve this.

Hiccup raises a paw and scratches at the bigger dragon's nose affectionately. _You roll_ , he gestures.

It is important that they fly back and find the hateful fleet of ships that snared their friends and bound them with tangle-nets, but it will not help their flock-mates if the dragon-pair are too tired to fight their enemies or puzzle out traps or be clever and sneaky.

They are not foolish hatchlings to race into battle against a much larger foe with paws flailing and eyes closed, and it is not a flock-mate's tail they are chasing but a great and unfamiliar threat. They must stalk it as they would dangerous prey that has horns or fangs or heavy-striking hard feet, waiting and watching and prepared. It is better to think about a problem if they can. Sometimes there is no time to think or there is not enough to think about, so they must pounce blind and find out in the middle of things what will happen.

But in this chasing there is time still to fly and track, and they are faster than many ships, so there is time to rest and hunt and prepare first. It is no good to go into battle tired, because then they will be slow and dull and beaten a bit already.

So Toothless flops down in the grass and rolls enthusiastically, wings and tail kicking up dust and staining with crushed grass the worn leather of the flying-with. It has endured many similar abuses in the past, even the tied-on things that fly with them and carry useful things. The way it rubs against his scales as he rolls is familiar rather than uncomfortable, scratching itchy places all by itself with no one to tell it to.

When he rolls all the way back to his feet again Hiccup has padded over to the edge of the river and is crouched over the bank, his body saying _hunting-fish_ with the way he moves, putting his paws down quietly and keeping his shadow from falling over the water.

Hiccup watches the fish attentively, easing his sharp-claw blade into the water. He has been fishing and hunting and scavenging to survive for most of his life, and he knows all the tricks. He could not explain how fish are somewhere else than they look like they are, so that a striking paw will snatch only water, but he knows that if the blade is in the water as well then he can beat the water at its own trick.

It is easier for him to hold onto the blade if he is not wearing his dragon-claws, so for now they are back on his belt. If there is nothing to fight and nothing to climb then he does not need them for now, although he prefers to wear them even when he does not need to. Like the scales that coat his homemade clothes, they are part of him – the scale-skin is more his real skin than the soft-skin underneath. In the same way his claws are not a make-believe thing, a pretend-thing – they are real.

Snakes are not-cousins, not-to-play-with, to be avoided because some of them bite too quick to see and too deeply to heal even though they are so small, but Hiccup has seen and searched for and brought home to play with all to pieces the skins they shed.

It is not remarkable, then, that his skins come off, but his skins are better because he can put them back on.

Snakes are not clever like that. They have no clever paws and no wings and no fire and no talking; they have only hiding and hunting and hissing at inquisitive dragon-boys who have poked sticks into their dens to make them come out and play with him. And they have biting, and for that adventure he had been thoroughly scolded and swatted a bit by Wavedancer-mother.

But he is not silly enough to insist on keeping his claws on when his claws do not easily wrap around the handle of the blade, although Toothless will tell him often that he is very silly, and Cloudjumper will tell him this, and Temper will tell him this, and Hangs from Stone Teeth will tell him this, and all the dragons in the nest will tell him this. At his core he is practical, a survivor. He has had to be.

A fish tickles against the blade, scratching its stomach against it, and the sharp-claw scratches it deeply and flips it out onto the bank where it can be pounced on and its backbone bitten through.

Toothless whistles _approval_ , joining him on the muddy bank, and Hiccup purrs in reply.

 _You want?_ he asks, holding out the fish. _You fish?_

Toothless lolls his tongue out in a dragon's laugh, and noses the offered fish until it is pressed between their noses, only the fish between them. Hiccup lets go of it, a try-and-see in case it will stay there on its own with no paws touching it. It does.

Until Toothless leaps backwards and it falls at Hiccup's feet, all for him.

Hiccup laughs back at him at the good joke, and watches Toothless hunt while he eats the fish. That it is entirely raw and still with scales on it and so fresh that it is still twitching a bit does not bother him at all – he eats as dragons do.

Toothless makes many more splashes with his fishing, leaping and pouncing and chasing the fish through the water in big jumps and quick paw-strikes, plunging his muzzle into the water to snap at the fleeing fish until they are all confused and do not know which way to go. He snaps them up in mouthfuls and devours them whole, ravenous from flying and excitement and the burning edge of anticipation of more daring adventures to come.

This would be a good island for dragons, and Hiccup cannot work out why there are no dragons here. No one has come to investigate the strangers eating their fish and rolling in their grass – it is not silly-grass, but it is pleasant to lie in – and drinking their water.

He explores a bit more, poking around and scenting the air for the smell of flames or for old scraps of prey that have gone nasty and reeking in the sun. The water is fresh, so there should be tracks from dragons coming to it to drink, even if they fly here.

Thinking about what he would do, if he was a dragon here, Hiccup finds a stone ledge that pours into the water, part of it in and part of it out. There are stones nearby in the surrounding mud, and when he puts one of his paws down in it he finds old scales that have been rubbed off by grooming dragons.

They are tiny like flower petals and many different colors, many different kinds and shapes. Maybe there were many different kinds of dragons living here, just like home and like _Buh-rrrrKK_ a bit.

Hiccup is always fascinated by bright colors, so he plays for a bit at hunting around the stones for the shed scales, rinsing them off in the river as he finds them. In between glances up and around to check on his surroundings – Toothless is lying in the sun, wings spread, and paddling a paw in the water idly, not hunting but playing with the remaining fish; there are no snake-holes anywhere to be seen; a fuzzy-tail races up a tree and then down again, so there might be a nest or a cache of seeds to raid; birds fly around but there is no alarm in their cries; there are _still_ no other dragons – he gathers too many small scales to hold.

Instead he makes a pile of them on the rock, well away from the water so Toothless cannot make a big splash and wash them away for a joke, and searches some more. When the area is exhausted, he too settles down in the sun and moves the scales around, making patterns with the colors and shapes. He makes them a picture, of dragons in a field when seen from above, and then like the movements of fish in the ocean, and then pictures of nothing of all, just thinking as he fidgets with the pretty colors.

He wonders about what kind of dragons the scales might have come from, and imagines the dragons that should live here but don't seem to anymore. Maybe they've gone to live with humans, now?

Hiccup is still slightly puzzled by dragons that choose to live with humans, but the idea does not make him bristle and hiss to think it. (It never occurs to him that he is a human who has chosen to live with dragons. He doesn't think like that. He is a dragon who happens to look a little bit human.)

There are some good things about humans that make them interesting to be around. They are makers of things, especially. They make different kinds of food, and they know the magic that makes pelts not smell bad and shed all their fur and fall apart, and they make pictures on paper and of wood and of stone, and they work metal. They use fire to make the metal change its shape, like a rock-skin cousin, so maybe there is a little bit of dragon about them.

And they can learn to be allies to dragons, so that is good. The _St-t-t-t-t-kk_ has gotten better about making dragons and humans not fight. Hiccup had been angry and scared and offended to fly to _Buh-rrrrKK_ for a good place to rest and be welcomed and instead to find their enemies there, but he had still noticed what the Alpha of the humans had been doing. The red-furred Alpha – Hiccup still has trouble thinking of him as their mother's-mate, to him that is still Cloudjumper – had protected them against the Alpha of the trappers, the Lines on Face Man.

Tiring of the game with the scales, Hiccup sweeps them up in his paws and pockets them to play with again later. Pockets are like little tiny holding things that come with him, like having extra paws and extra mouths, and are a good thing.

He finds a large open space where perhaps many dragons have rolled and played in the grass and dug it up for nests, because there is no grass there anymore, only dirt and dust. With the point of his sharp-claw blade, he begins to draw.

The dragon-man draws what he remembers of the giant fleet, trying to make it real enough to think about, but unreal enough to be wiped away by Toothless' broad tailfins or his own small paws. Sometimes it is easier to think about things when he can see them on the ground rather than inside his eyes, and they do not change so quickly when they are shapes on the ground. In his mind the memories are all tinged with storm and fear and shock, like they do not want to be thought about.

But when they are on the ground they cannot move; they are pinned there like a caught fish snatched out of the water where it was hiding, thinking that the tricky water would make it hard to catch.

Hiccup likes to draw in snow because it is sharp and crisp for drawing in, but there is no snow here. Anyway, snow-drawings break easily when paws step near them, and in the dirt he can step across it lightly, putting his paws down carefully and moving in leaps and long falling-over steps until they are quick-steps like running. The ship they landed on briefly was big, so he draws it big, scampering from place to place and filling in details as much as possible. He saw only some of it, and remembers less, but he fills in what he can.

Thinking in pictures, the dragon-man draws the shapes of ships, focusing on the one their friends went to. It was large and heavy and almost with two bodies tied together, one smaller than the other, like him and Toothless, and two tails, like a two-heads cousin. There were many, many, many bubbles underneath, like a whole clutch of hatchlings who have learned enough to know that hiding underwater is a good hiding place, but who do not yet know how to hold their breath and hide for real. There were tall trees planted in them, with the broad leaves of sails.

He draws a shape with all straight lines for the human nest built on the ship's back, where humans can go into and down, but cannot imagine what they might look like on the inside. Instead he leaps away from the ship-drawing and draws instead an ants' nest, and then smears it out and draws a memory of an ants' nest swatted with a paw and all broken open, with holes poked in it to show little tunnels.

His drawings do not always look like the thing – they are mostly reminders. That the fleet is an ants' nest is a pretend-like, a make-believe, an almost-like.

By now Toothless has come to join him, to look at the thinking-drawing and to protect his beloved-companion while he works. Toothless knows very well that when Hiccup is working on something he forgets where he is and forgets to be alert for anything else, stranger or friend or enemy or even, once, a bear.

Hiccup had still been very small then, little enough for Toothless to grab the dragon-boy in his jaws and fly away without pausing to yelp a warning, just snatched him up and fled. And while Hiccup had howled in protest at being taken away from the making-thing he was working on – Toothless does not remember what it was; it was long ago but he remembers the bear – the black dragon had taken him back and shown him from a safe distance what he had not seen while he drowned himself in making.

Toothless recognizes Hiccup's drawings for what they are, well familiar with his other self's style. He had forgotten a bit what they were preparing to do, distracted by the enjoyment of the hunt and basking in the sun, and now the sight makes him edgy.

The black dragon cannot draw shapes the way Hiccup does, so he draws feelings instead. He scratches at the ground anxiously near the picture-ships, making nervous marks by them, and lowers his nose to the ground to breathe out a sharp breath as if blowing away the bad scents that came off them even through the strong smell of rain and lightning. The snort scatters the dirt and makes a picture of the breath, which becomes part of Hiccup's picture and part of their thoughts, and Hiccup is careful not to step on any of it as he moves around, sketching.

Toothless dashes off to the forest's edge and wrestles a stick from a tree. It does not want to give it to him, but he fights it until he wins. Returning triumphantly, clicking with pride – Hiccup laughs at him – the bigger dragon tips it in his jaws until it makes lines in the dirt like the smaller drawing-sticks that Hiccup sometimes uses. With it he draws a long line around the ship drawings, showing the way that they could scout out the fleet, looking at it from all sides.

Then, he suggests, racing across the drawing and making a big scratch through everything, then they can fly through it fast and dive to where they need to be, and back out again. It is just like playing pretend, telling a story by acting it out, but in a way that can be seen again and again.

It is a clever thing. Toothless is not sure he would have thought of it by himself, but that is why they are better together.

Hiccup has stopped drawing to watch his beloved-companion's ideas, and now he says aloud in dragon-sounds, _sun no_ , gesturing upwards. The sky is empty of cloud-cover because the storm has blown it all away. _Sneaking_ , he shows, _careful hunting careful patient slow._ They will have to wait for darkness.

Toothless chirrs a reluctant agreement. _Where?_ he asks, rearing up onto his hind legs to look out over the ocean. _Ships go ships where where ships searching searching no-luck_ – this last the disappointed whistle of a dragon who has found no food today and is hungry and tired.

Tapping the point of the sharp-claw blade against the ground like an irritated tail-tip – tails that look like that should not be pounced on because the dragon on the other end of that tail is very unhappy and does not want to play – Hiccup thinks about the problem. Neither of them have any concept of how wide all the ocean is.

They know only that they could wander forever and never see all the world, and most of the time this is a warmth in their hearts like the embers of a fresh-burnt ash nest.

But finding even such a large fleet in the endless ocean is a problem. There are no tracks to follow in the sea, just as there are none in the air. They do not know where they were when they saw the ships last night – the wind blew them very far in all directions, and they could not see the stars, and there were no islands to take their position from – and anyway, ships move. Ships are like traveling dragons in that way, almost as difficult to find as the wandering pair themselves when they want to be elsewhere. There may be places they can be found often, or ways that they like to go, but to know these things dragons have to watch for many seasons and remember one ship from the other. It takes thinking, and time.

Finding a fleet they know so little about is a frustrating puzzle, and frightening because they _need_ to find it.

Hiccup wrinkles his snub nose to draw Toothless' attention to it and lowers it to the ground in the manner of a dragon following a scent. _Tracking?_ he suggests, grimacing. _Ships stink smell bad not-like yuck smell you smell you find maybe?_

Toothless thrums _maybe_ , but his body says _uncertainty_ and _can't-say_ and _no-promise_.

While he thinks about it, Hiccup draws many more ships, smaller and with no details or thoughts about them, only showing _many many many_. To him all the ships look alike, in his memory. How are they to know which one their friends are on? Perhaps Toothless can smell them too, but he knows his dragon-love's capabilities and doesn't think so. The fleet _stinks_.

And the others were taken into the stomach of the ship. It is foolish to go into a strange cave – although this has rarely stopped them before – especially when they know a cave has dangerous humans in it, with spears and arrows and tangle-nets.

He explains all these thoughts to Toothless in the mixture of sounds and gestures and acting-out and facial expressions that they use, drawing sometimes for emphasis. Toothless reminds him that the ship they saw closest had many edges. He hides behind the nearby trees to show sneaking and hiding, stepping with exaggerated stealth and silence. If they are quiet, and watchful, they can look.

If they are quiet they cannot call out to their friends, who might answer if they heard a familiar voice and then the dragon-pair could find them that way.

It is a wait-and-see, perhaps.

They doze throughout the long afternoon on the empty island, resting to be ready to hunt and fight if necessary. Hiccup wakes up every now and again to doodle another thought or scuff away an old one, more fidgeting than planning. When he can sleep no longer he fixes a claw that has come loose from one of his gloves, stitching it more tightly into the leather. When Toothless wakes up again they check the flying-with together, Hiccup pulling on each piece with all his strength and Toothless standing firm and resisting, making sure that the knots will not slip and the straps will not stretch when they are doing something daring and absurd like flying upside down or doing flips and twists at full speed in the air while humans are shooting at them.

They both know that might happen.

* * *

It is later, with the sun burning towards the faraway horizon that the dragon-pair can never quite catch up to because it flies very fast, and Toothless is searching the wind for the scents and sounds of the threatening fleet. With Hiccup securely on his shoulders again they soar high and look out as far as they can. The brightness of the late afternoon light flames into their eyes, but it will strike sparks off the metal of the ships as well, so they look for those sparks glinting across the surface of the ocean. The crests of waves and the small shimmering of the calm ocean glint with reflections too, so every glance offers the possibility of ships. Every glance yields nothing.

Rather than ships, Toothless can smell distant islands, and living things, blown outward over the ocean by the playful wind. The wind ran off all its anger last night and tired itself out pushing many clouds and roaring very fiercely, so now it is calmer and better to fly in. The high-sky current in the air flows along politely, like a dragon who means to go straight home and curl up in his nest, stepping carefully around everyone without stopping to argue or double back around to pounce on a playmate.

And the sea, there is always the smell of the sea. The tinge of salt, the tastes of sea-grass and fish and not-fish swimmers and distance and endless. A breath from far away smells like the ever-present ice of further north. It smells like home, like their nest and their king, and the reminder reassures them. They are far too far away to hear the voice of the king, but the taste of ice is like catching his scent and knowing he is nearby hunting for himself or his flock.

Below, Toothless catches the scent of ocean dragons, strange but known to him.

 _Look!_ he whistles. Shifting into an easy glide, he and Hiccup look down at the ever-moving ocean. _Dragons here look dragons anticipation curious see you see?_

With a splash that shatters the brightness across the water and sends it flying like so many crystals of ice, a lightning-noses dragon-cousin surfaces to breathe, visible only for a moment as it leaps from the water and then vanishes beneath it again.

Hiccup chirps with interest. The lightning-noses swim so deeply and so far that the wandering pair do not see them often. They fly only in the deepest and darkest waters where he and Toothless could never swim. It is too cold and it is hard to leap from the water and fly again with water-bedraggled wings. If there was nowhere to swim to and climb out then they would be stranded in the water; they would be tired in the cold soon and drown.

Still, the lightning-noses are their cousins. All dragons are kin, in some way. However fiercely different flocks and different kinds of dragons fight, all acknowledge that. The lightning-noses are distant cousins, dragons of water and sparks rather than dragons of air and fire like them, different but wonderful and good to see.

 _Dragon-cousins look!_ Hiccup yelps, struck by an idea.

Toothless, not understanding, looks back over his shoulder, rumbling a question. He knows to look at the lightning-noses; he had seen them first!

Hiccup growls with no real malice, alert and excited with the new idea. _Where ships ships where don't-know far uncertain unsure ships no ships where where? Dragons look us look yes us THEM yes look them ships yes maybe?_

He means that the lightning-noses cousins could help them look for the ships, that a flock of ocean dragons that swim everywhere and hunt in the deep oceans, where ships might be found if there were no islands nearby, might be able to find the fleet faster than just Hiccup and Toothless by themselves. It is a strange idea to Toothless – the lightning-noses are not part of their flock, and while ocean dragons and dragons of air and land are kin they do not flock together except when there is a good place to fish. Certainly dragons like them do not ask sea dragons for help.

But it is a good idea to have more eyes, and the lightning-noses have many eyes in many faces, so Toothless likes it. With renewed determination, he sets off in pursuit of the lightning-noses flock.

They are hard to track because they swim so deep underwater, and while they must come up for air sometimes rather than breathing underwater always like fish do, they hold their breath very well. Hiccup and Toothless can hold their breath for many heartbeats, and that is a fun game when they are not using it to swim and hunt. They can hide underwater in hide-and-find games because many dragons are too big to hide in shallow water, and they can play at staying under longer than each other.

 _Wait!_ Toothless calls when one breaks the surface. He whistles for attention, whistle-shrieks a distress call, but the lightning-noses does not hear him or does not understand him or does not know that Toothless is talking to it, and dives again.

Snarling in frustration, Toothless glares at the water, trying to find another one to chase after. _There!_ Hiccup indicates, pointing.

They could chase the lightning-noses all day and well into the night, and when it gets dark they will not be able to see even their shadows in the water. Toothless can see in the darkest cave except for one, but that trick does not work as well underwater, and not at all when he is in the air and trying to find something in the water. He has to be all the way underwater.

Hiccup's idea is a good one, but Toothless will have to change it a bit at the beginning.

Summoning up blasting-fire from his fires inside, Toothless draws in a deep breath and fires into the water, close to the only lightning-noses he can still see but not close enough to hurt it.

Probably. Toothless has never shot blasting-fire at an ocean dragon under the water before; he is not sure what will happen.

On his shoulders, Hiccup reacts with a surprised yelp, but does not scold.

In the water, the lightning-noses stops. Then it turns around – Toothless can see it do so, through the water – and seems to circle for a moment.

The black dragon watches it curiously, puzzled.

Just in time, Hiccup realizes what it is doing and hauls backward on the flying-with, chirruping _up up up now!_

Scrambling to get away from the angry dragon, Toothless soars up into the air even as the lightning-noses breaks the surface in a leap, sparks like lightning flashing between its two noses and reaching out towards them. They have flown in storms many times but storms are big things and they are small, too small for the storm to hunt. Lightning has never been aimed _at_ them before!

It leaps high into the air but the dragon-pair are far above it, and it does not fly like they do. Instead it shrieks up at them and dives back into the water, disappearing.

 _Sorry sorry sorry sorry,_ Toothless cries, descending again. He whistles and howls all the apologies he can, hoping that they will listen.

All around the hovering dragons, noses break the surface in pairs, and lightning-noses stare at them suspiciously and curiously.

Their signals are different and unfamiliar but Hiccup can see some of what they are saying. Their sounds are even stranger, but he thinks they will be able to understand each other.

Toothless cries his distress signal again, and they chatter among themselves, surprised that a land dragon is asking sea dragons for help.

 _What you?_ one asks – or at least, that is how Hiccup understands it. _You strange you what threat? Angry! Why threat?_

The black dragon yelps for attention, and they stare at him.

One clicks rapidly and dives again, and comes back up a breath later with a small lightning-noses on its back.

 _No!_ Hiccup protests, yelping with indignation. He understands the reenactment, but he is not a hatchling being carried. In the eyes of his family he has not been a hatchling for a very long time, longer than he can really remember. He whistles shrilly the sound their flock-cousins make to identify themselves to each other and to trespassers, insisting that he is a fully-fledged adult of that flock.

But underneath his exasperation part of him is relieved, a part of him that went unacknowledged for so long. Meeting new dragons always has more of an edge of risk now – there was no fear before because he did not _know_. There was always the danger that he and Toothless would be driven away as intruders rather than welcomed as travelers, that they would make enemies rather than friends. But while he never otherwise thinks of what he really looks like, now he is sometimes besieged by uncertainty and the fear that one day dragons will look at him and see not kin but enemy-other, that they will look at him and not know that he is a dragon in every way that matters.

One day his own people might look at him and see only a human and that, to Hiccup, would be a mortal blow.

The lightning-noses see nothing strange about him. They have little contact with land dragons and less still with humans, and they see only a small dragon being carried on the back of a larger one, like one of their own babies or the calves of the whales whose world they share. They see him as a hatchling, but a dragon-hatchling, so Hiccup is only mildly insulted rather than heartbroken.

He is not sure if they will understand his sounds, but Hiccup is willing to try anyway and hope. _Ships ships ships,_ he chatters repeatedly, making gestures to sketch out a ship and the way a ship moves in the waves using his paws. He asks _where? where?_ in sounds and in looking around, and chirrs _wondering? Bad ships? Where ships? Us ships looking looking ships you looking you?_

The lightning-noses make a sustained clicking sound to each other as they circle in a holding pattern around where Toothless hovers. It takes Hiccup some puzzling over the sound to figure out that they are laughing.

One lightning-noses lifts its heads above water again to whistle a question, probably _why?_ Why would dragons be looking for ships?

 _Please_ , Toothless whimpers. He cries out _trouble_ and _danger_ and the sharp whistle they make for a flock-mate threatened. _Others-in-danger please please urgent-important please!_

They click to each other some more. Despite how anxious he is for their answer, Hiccup is fascinated by their clicking. He has heard something like it other times when swimming in deeper water, over deep dives where shallow water gives way so suddenly to the dark-cold-falling-away feeling of a ledge underwater. He wonders if clicks carry underwater like whistles do in the sky.

One of the lightning-noses whistles a sound that seems like _maybe_. Mimicking some of the sounds that Hiccup made before, it says _ships no ships looking us looking yes looking,_ and there is much more laughing.

Perhaps they think searching for ships might be fun, just because it is strange and new and outrageous. Hiccup has gotten some strange ideas past his flock-mates by suggesting that whatever it is this time might be new and fun.

The lightning-noses disappear into the deep ocean, scattering, and Hiccup and Toothless fly on, still searching in their own way. The scent of ice has faded as the wind changes, but an interesting wind from away-from-the-sun carries a whiff of deep green trees with sticky branches and leaves like sewing-thorns but not as strong. It is a good smell, and if they were wandering aimlessly as they do so often they would follow it and find out where it came from. But there is still no scent of ships.

Before it gets entirely dark to their night-practiced eyes a lightning-noses finds them again, leaping up from the ocean as if it means to fly beside them for a while.

Toothless purrs with laughter and swoops low and then upwards, mimicking its leap in reverse and inviting it to do that again.

It jumps to meet him but whistles a sharp scolding noise, not a playing sound. Its noses are sparking back and forth, bright and biting. It is frightened.

 _Danger!_ it warns. _No!_

One shriek is an insult, _stupid!_ another a warning, _fly away!_

Toothless shakes his head and snarls at it, insisting stubbornly. _Where?_ he demands.

Floating on the surface of the water, the lightning-noses growls at him. But it points the way with its noses, and flees.

 _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ do not see any more lightning-noses after that.

But they go the way it showed them, cautious, flying high so they can see far away by the light of moon and stars and softer reflections off the water. Sound carries well over water, they know, so they fly silently, listening for the calls of dragons, the lapping sounds of water against ship-sides like a dragon licking a wound, the movement of metal, the voices of humans talking to each other. The few metal objects that Hiccup possesses and treasures are muted against just such a betraying sound.

The scent of ice grows stronger as they find the wind from it again, and follow that trail to a great scattering of much ice. Toothless changes their course to fly higher as the cold pulls them down, and starlight melts into the ice where it is clear of snow, leaving no scar, like a fire-blasted pebble swatted into water to sink.

In time they hear metal and waves against ships, and distantly the sounds of human voices, but not of dragons. When they get closer even Hiccup's small nose can catch the unsettling scent of fire and metal and humans and dragons, and all of it dirty somehow. There is a mixed smell of humans and dragons back on _Buh-rrrrKK_ but this is different. Without the rain tamping it down, it smells like misery.

By now at the end of their search, in a lake amidst the ice like a clearing amongst stone, where the many ships have come to nest, it is much darker, and they are hidden within the night. Even dragon eyes would struggle to see them, but they approach high and far-away because humans do not fly and they do not look _up_.

From way up in the air but not so high that it is hard to breathe, close enough to see clearly, they circle the fleet the way Toothless drew back on the empty island. Everything about the fleet is outlandish and bizarre. It is strange that there are so many of them all together. It is strange that they do not move with the small waves the way other ships do. If they are so heavy, how do they go anywhere? Is this where they live? Did they leave their lake-nest to hunt? Why are there so many things everywhere? What are all the things growing on their backs, or built there? _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ have no answers.

They recognize humans, moving across the broad backs of the huge ships, lit up by tame fires that live in nests or are being carried from place to place. They understand carrying-things that roll when they are pulled – things that roll are a magic of humans; it looks very clever but Hiccup has already decided that the magic would not work in caves. There are pulling-beasts tied to the carrying-rolling-things, which they have seen before.

They know weapons when they see them, bigger and more intimidating but familiar enemies still, and there are many of those. There are pieces on the noses of the ships that have been shaped to look like dragon skulls, and together they shudder with distaste and unease at the making that humans have done.

But when they get closer, landing on the branch at the top of a ship-tree, hidden behind the single huge white leaf that hangs from it, they finally realize that the pulling-beasts are not any of the beasts they recognize from occasional raids on human nests.

The beasts in chains are _dragons_.

Dragons in harness, not like the flying-with wrapped reassuringly around Toothless' back and shoulders and chest and Hiccup's smaller body, but bulky and sharp and made all of metal, trapping them to the heavy pulling-thing. Dragons with metal on them, in chains but moving about at the command of humans.

As they watch from far above, baffled and horrified, humans walk behind the dragons bound to a thing like a paw-biting trap but big enough to eat a whole dragon whole, stabbing at them with spears, and the dragons move forward, obedient.

Hiccup is shaking, lost and confused. This cannot be what it looks like – he does not know what it is, but he thinks there must be something he does not understand. Beneath his chest, he can feel that Toothless is trembling too, the two of them reflecting their emotions back and forth between each other.

They cannot leave their friends in this place. How could they have brought their friends anywhere near here? They must find them quickly, before humans can put chains on them and make them move traps.

Hiccup feels as if his voice has been struck silent, as if his throat has been torn out – surely that is why it hurts, why it is so tight it is choking him, why he cannot swallow down the horror coiling in his gut. He cannot ask Toothless who is his heart to go into this place.

Instead he buries his face in the back of Toothless' skull and hides behind his ear-flaps, something he has done whenever he was frightened ever since he was a baby.

Toothless knows this signal and recognizes his fear. The black dragon is frightened too, but his role has always been as Hiccup's protector, guarding his beloved dragon-boy against predators and cold and boredom and humans and loneliness and people who tell him stupid not-true things. If Hiccup is afraid Toothless has to be the one who is brave and defiant, holding his ground against whatever enemy is threatening them, just as when Toothless is afraid Hiccup must be the one to keep them safe.

In a sound no louder than a murmur, Toothless asks, _go?_ He knows not to turn his head to try to look over his shoulder because Hiccup is hiding and his dragon-partner does not want to take away even the small comfort of a hiding place.

He feels Hiccup take in a deep breath and hold it, feels Hiccup's claws scratch harmlessly against his shoulders as the dragon-man clenches them into fists.

Neither of them consider that this may be Hiccup's most enduringly human gesture – the ability to hold onto those people he loves and cherishes, to use tools to change the world around himself and his family, and to fight back when he has no other choice.

A tug on one ear-flap prompts Toothless to look back at last, meeting Hiccup's eyes in the edges of fire-light from the nightmare below. _You?_ Hiccup asks with no more than eye contact, asking for his opinion. This is not a decision for one of them to make alone; it must be both of them together.

Toothless raises his jaw and says, _brave_ , narrows his eyes and bares his teeth to say _angry_.

In reply, Hiccup closes his eyes briefly and bares his own teeth in reply, agreeing. Their anger and their courage must be stronger than fear.

But before they descend to learn more and begin their search, the dragon-man settles back into the harness, low to Toothless' back as if ready for freefall. He reaches out around Toothless' neck as far as he can to embrace him, clinging to his dragon-partner as he always has for courage and comfort.

Toothless rumbles all over with a bone-deep purr, and prepares to dive.

They have assumed that the edges of the fleet will be guarded, just like the edges of a flock's nest. It was at the edge of the fleet that they were shot at, coming upon it unexpected in the storm, but perhaps it will not be so well-protected towards the heart of it. In a dragon nest, a well-behaved stranger who acts like she knows what she is doing and like she belongs can go anywhere, if the flock does not recognize her as a stranger or an intruder. This trick does not work for Hiccup and Toothless because they are so unusual, but they know about it. And here there are many dragons, so maybe if they stay low and mostly out of sight they will not be spotted as intruders.

They have guessed also that the biggest ship will be the leader of the fleet, the one that all other ships can see, so that is where they have gone. Just as their king lives at the heart of the nest, so the leader of the ships will be the heart of the fleet. They can learn much about a flock – what it wants, how it lives, how fiercely it will defend its territory against strangers – by the behavior of its Alpha.

They can interpret the behavior of humans and the things of humans only through what they know, through the rules of a dragon nest.

 _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ fly away from their hiding place in the ship-tree briefly, circling and diving to the surface of the ship. They fly lightly, almost idly, as if they were no more than a flickering shadow chased here and there by the movements of tame fires, but they know that the seemingly casual flight will deceive watchful eyes in ways that sharp lunges and racing sprints will not.

There is no shriek of alarm when they land on the peak of what seems like a hill on the back of the ship, concealed in the shadow of a tower of metal and wood, looming and wholly unfamiliar. They cower back into the darkness, Toothless pressing his flank against the structure so that they cannot be crept up on from that side. It reeks of sharp scents and metal and humans and strangeness; no one will be able to sniff them out beneath its smell.

From there, they watch, and everything they see terrifies them more and more.

There are dragons harnessed, dragons waiting with heads down and colors muted all crowded into small spaces and making no attempt to go anywhere, dragons submissive to human authority. Their voices are silent, and all their signals muted. They say one thing, and never change, as if they cannot think past a single idea.

 _Despair_ , one says in the slump of her wings and the tension of her shoulders, her head so low her jaw rests on the ground. She stares at nothing, and does not blink.

 _Resignation,_ says another. His eyes are closed and he is rocking very slowly from paw to paw. His movements have nothing to do with the movements of the ship – the ship is stable underfoot like stone even though they are over the still-churning water – and when a passing human strikes him with a heavy stick even the _crack!_ of it against his scales does not make him react.

 _Tired_ , another says over and over, sides heaving and legs collapsed beneath her. Her long tail is sprawled out behind her, and humans keep stepping over and on it. One of them kicks it, not even like he is angry with it but just like it is a rope or a stone that is in his way, but when she tries to curl it in closer and away from him it is too heavy for her to move.

 _Dull_ , everything about yet another says. He has the same fixed stare as many others scattered across the ship – there are so many! – and does not react to the loud noises from the doings of the humans.

And the humans are so busy! It is night, and night is when humans sleep, but these humans are awake and striding from place to place with big, confident steps, carrying weapons and tools and holding-things and talking to each other in loud voices. At one end of the ship, humans are swarming all over an arrow-shooting weapon, but one as big as Cloudjumper, its arrows as big as spears! They hit it with heavy-striking hammers, ringing and loud – that must have been the sound of metal on metal _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ heard, far away across the water. A scent-trail from somewhere else smells like human food, but tinged with the same sharp scent as the tower they are hiding beneath.

A familiar stench from somewhere else is dragon blood, heavy and strong and constant.

There are many hiding-places for dragons on the ship; there is the sea; there is the sky; but none of the dragons are trying to escape all of this human craziness. There are many humans with many weapons, but there are many dragons, too, and they should be able to overpower the humans easily and flee. But they do not; they only wait.

Are all the other ships in the fleet like this? Hiccup wonders, overwhelmed. He wants to think that they are not, that this is the only place so terrible, but the way that the humans move tells him otherwise. They are not surprised by any of it. Nothing is remarkable.

If the shock of seeing dragons enslaved by humans was a horror, the idea that this might be _normal_ is such an abomination that his urge to flee is almost a physical force. But he is frozen, trapped as much as any dragon-cousin with her wings tangled by a thrown net, and cannot stop seeing.

There are so many slaves. This is where trapped dragons go, he realizes: this is where they go to die. They have been fighting this evil all their lives, carrying on their mother's work, but at last they have found the rotted heart of it.

Across the deck, one of the chained dragons pulling the enormous paw-biting trap slips, its claws sliding across the deck with a great clatter as it – she, Hiccup distinguishes subconsciously – collapses under the strain of moving something so heavy. Dragons are strong, but the trap is the biggest device Hiccup has ever seen, almost too big for him to recognize it as such. If he had not seen it from the air and seen its jaws half-open he would have believed it a hill, covered in metal for some mad reason of humans.

She scrabbles at the wood of the deck, trying to get her footing back. Everything about her screams _tired_ , but quietly because she is too tired to signal clearly. She tries again and again, but cannot rise, and eventually she gives up, slumping back to the deck and lowering her head in submission.

Humans crowd around her, shouting at her, kicking at her and nipping at her with spears, urging her to obey them and get up. She turns away, refusing.

Beside her, the other chained dragon looks away and will not defend her, lowers his head as well and turns a bit to show her only his shoulder, trying to be invisible with nowhere to go and nothing to hide behind. He too is exhausted, and Hiccup can see in the guilty slump of his shoulders that he is grateful that the humans are yelling at her and not him. He is not acting like part of a flock at all. He is the stronger; why will he not defend his flock-mate?

But that is not the strangest thing. The strangest thing is that when the humans give up and step away, she tenses and freezes, eyes wide and frightened and then as if staring into the sun although there is no brightness, and rises to her feet as if given new strength. She digs her claws into the deck, scoring through, and starts pulling again.

She is still not strong enough, despite her determination, and the trap goes nowhere.

Finally the humans move in to remove the harness that binds her to the pulling-thing, and she follows submissively as one of them leads her away.

On Toothless' back in their hiding place, Hiccup has been silently willing her along, tensing his own muscles in sympathy with her, wishing more than anything to help her or, better still, to set her free. Now he slumps in relief, feeling tension unwind from between his shoulders as he lowers his head and looks away in his turn.

So it is Toothless who sees what happens next; Toothless who makes the lowest of low moans of despair and shock and horror and grief, and when Hiccup looks up in astonishment there is blood on the deck, and the shrill snapping sound of a striking whip raised again to punish her for being too tired.

It takes all their strength to not break cover and destroy everything they can right there, mad with rage and anguish and hatred. But their control is fraying with every shudder, every tremble, every racing heartbeat and howling breath. Only the fear that they will be seen if they attack – _seen_ , by monsters like this! – stops them.

The humans have been busy while dragon and dragon-man struggled, so uncaring that already they are hauling another dragon up from the belly of the ship to replace the one too frightened and cowed even to whimper as she licks her wounds, and that – and that – is what breaks _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ at last.

Because they know him. This is Licks Stones, who is the clutch-sibling of Kicks in Dreams, who was lost in the storm, who should have _escaped_ , and if Licks Stones is here who else did they capture? Did none of their friends, the flock-mates _they_ brought into this, get away?

Licks Stones is their friend, who likes to play with the rock-skin cousins of their flock who actually do eat stones, who can never work out what is so tasty about them, but who is always trying, just in case they have suddenly become good for him to eat too. He actually ate one once and broke a tooth trying to chew it, and yelped as he ate for the longest time, until the tooth smoothed over, but there is still a deep notch in one of his fangs so that it is almost like two fangs now. When his clutch-sibling wakes others up with her thrashing he will kick her back until she stops or wakes up, and laugh silently and offer to play chase when she wakes surly and tries to fight.

Licks Stones stands dully and makes no protest when humans wrap the pulling harness around him, and does not fight back at all.

It is the same with all the others, now that they look, in the edges of the ship. They are not even tied up, most of them. They are just waiting, not even trying.

Everyone has just given up.

And this, Hiccup realizes, this is _their_ fault. _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ gave the prisoners hope when they tried to free them from the cages that Lines on Face Man put them in, promising that they were going to help, and instead he and Toothless just got them captured by something worse. They led their _friends_ into this, and then they left them behind.

Despair wraps itself up and lodges in his gut like one of Licks Stones' rocks, sitting there and weighing him down, forcing out everything else and never, never going away.

They cannot let this happen. They cannot watch humans whip their friend to make him move something so terrifying, in the service of humans who are everything, _everything_ they have ever hated.

Roaring, Toothless leaps. He knows better to blast at the metal things because sometimes there are metal cages that cannot be marked by dragon-flame, so instead he strikes at the carrying-thing that is carrying the enormous trap, and it explodes beautifully.

Lashing out at everything within reach, slapping away the nearest humans with his tail, Toothless charges, blind with hatred. On his shoulders Hiccup picks out targets and directs him to them; together in perfect coordination they send strange built things flying and bowl over humans, and their cries as they scatter sound like songs of triumph to the enraged dragon-pair.

But louder still they cry out to the dragons who turn to look at them, calling on their dragon-kin to follow them, to fight back, to flee, to not be _afraid_ , because there is fear in their eyes, flickering in the depths of deep pits.

It has always worked before. Most dragons will follow a leader. And the adventures they have survived; the confidence they have gained from knowing that they can take on a flock or a pack of human hunters or an Alpha, if they must; that they can lead others; that they can be in charge if they need to – these things have given _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ an entirely unconscious air of authority, and other dragons respond to that.

These do not.

Toothless' charge falters as they realize that this is not going as expected. The humans are not frightened – their cries are calls for reinforcements, passing messages, turning to stare in surprise but not in fear. The dragons are not moving, are not even interested.

Instead they look at _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ with pity, with sadness, and always with resignation and despair.

No one is reacting as they should, and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ stop, exposed in the middle of the deck and baffled.

Between the horror of this place and the sudden vulnerability of being exposed in the midst of their enemies with no allies in sight, Toothless' instincts are to cringe, to be small and invisible, to slink away and hide, to flee. But they came here to fight – this is a rescue, if only the dragons who should be on their side would be rescued! – and instead he bristles and stands his ground, glaring at the humans who have retreated to a safe distance, surrounding _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ like hunters cornering their prey.

Together they snarl, voices singing in deadly harmony, low and threatening and defensive, claiming this space with no humans in it. With their growls they challenge their enemies to approach and be sent away yelping and bleeding and _hurting_ for the things that they have done!

There is a shout from outside the space that _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ have claimed as their own, a human word they do not recognize in a voice that carries like thunder.

All around, the dragons who did not respond to the voice of their own kind react to this human voice, opening their jaws and lighting their fires, holding that burning light in their mouths. All of those jaws turn so that fires point towards the dragon-pair, who are suddenly as brightly lit as if they had pounced into this trap – it is a trap, they recognize it now, they have tricked and broken traps all their lives but at last one has caught them in their arrogance – on the brightest of clear days.

They are surrounded, exposed – betrayed! The dragon-kin they came to rescue have turned against them.

Shaking now with puzzlement and fear almost as much as with the rage and disgust still coursing through both of them, the single creature that is both Hiccup and Toothless at once tenses to fly. This rescue is a failure, and now they can only save themselves.

A flight of arrows over their heads ends that plan immediately.

And then that thunderous voice rings out again, and a man strides through enslaved dragons and the hunting pack of humans as if he does not notice that they exist, and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ come face to face with their enemy.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	5. Chapter 5

_**Stormfall,**_ **Part Five**

Eret is a bit baffled by what the people of Berk call cells. It's not that the block of rooms isn't secure, with locks inconveniently on the other side of the doors, but they're much more comfortable than he ever would have expected. He doesn't have to admit it – no one can make him – but the room he's locked in at the moment is a bit more hospitable than the hut he'd claimed for his own back at the base. And not just because that hut is probably little more than mud and ashes right now.

The cells are dark, but only because there's a rock face right behind the building, which has thick walls. They're locked in, but that made no difference at all to most of his people. They've been too deeply asleep, most of the time, to go anywhere, wrapped up inside heavy cloaks and patched quilts – all brought in by the people who keep wandering in and out.

If the doors weren't locked, Eret wouldn't know that they were prisoners at all. They've been brought food and drink as well as the bedding, and even some dry clothes, swapped in private trades for still-damp garments that seem to be unusual and interesting to the islanders. No one is guarding them, except in the most informal way. Sure, they're being watched, but that's just because people keep coming in and talking to his crew, chatting together and quite cheerfully and confidently, as if they're really all just friends.

Off to Eret's left, he can hear Denholm telling a joke, one Eret has heard him tell far too many times but that seems to be new to these people, because the trick at the end of it brings a roar of laughter from the three burly men listening to him. In the cell to the right of him, one of the locals is telling a story of her own to Ascanius, having been promised another story from him in trade.

Not long ago, there was an impromptu singing contest to see how many verses to a popular drinking song anyone could remember, apparently because the Viking who had started the contest was trying to outdo his sister and if they knew any more verses… Of course, they'd had to sing all the ones they had in common first.

It hadn't been quite as bad as what would have awaited them in, say, Drago Bludvist's cells, but that had just been cruel.

Certainly they're in a better situation than they were the night before, or even, if he's being honest, several nights before that. But Eret tries not to be too honest too often. It's bad for business, and if anyone knew half the nonsense that runs through his head on a regular basis, they'd never stop laughing.

Eret just wishes it wasn't a cell, and that he hadn't been disarmed and locked up as easily a rowdy child sent to bed early. He has his pride.

Sometimes that's all he has, but he damn well has it.

"Aren't any of you upset?" he asks once the latest batch of visitors has left. He has to raise his voice to be heard over the sound of Norge's snoring, which has been known to scare dragons and send his comrades racing for the bulkheads to look over the side and make sure the ship isn't scraping her keel on a shallow draft. "We're locked up, and I haven't heard so much as a grumble from any of you."

There's some awkward clearing of throats, and unless Eret is imagining things he can hear some frantic whispers as each cell nominates a spokesman. Finally Eamon says, "Yeah, but it's warm."

"And not raining," Byrne volunteers.

"And we don't have a hundred dragons staring us down."

"Yeah," just about everyone else agrees with that in ragged unison. Eret wonders why they couldn't have been that coordinated during the singing.

"Besides," chimes in Andvari, "you've got a plan, right, boss?"

Whoever's sharing Andvari's cell thumps him with a fist – Eret can hear the "ow!"

"Of course he has a plan," Midrag says. "We're good here until you say the word, sir."

Eret will not admit for anything that he doesn't have a plan. He has several plans, but none of them get very far.

"Sure," he says instead. "Sure I do."

These aren't really cells with intent. They don't mean it. They're just rooms that lock from the outside. If he and his people had their weapons – which they don't, they've been brought everything they've asked for except anything they could use to escape – they could probably be out of here in minutes, and then…well, then what?

Would they run? Where would they run to? It's an _island_ , and the thing about islands is that they're very hard to run away from on foot. It's one of their defining qualities.

Berk is one of the bigger islands, surely, and there must be plenty of places to hide. But Eret wouldn't bet on finding those places before the locals found him and his crew.

Once, a few years ago, a dragon they'd captured broke loose from its cage and escaped. It didn't get far, not because anyone had been particularly quick off the mark in recapturing it, but because it had gotten out and then stopped, staring, lost. It hadn't understood that in between that trap snapping shut on it and the beast breaking out, Eret and his crew had put it on a ship and taken it somewhere new.

In its confusion, it had been easy prey.

Eret wonders what's happened to his beloved ship. When the storm finally died down, Eret had been relieved only that she was still in one piece. She's a resilient craft, but nothing had been certain after an endless eternity of huddling in the darkness, wedged into corners and clinging to crates, praying that the ties were going to hold and that the supplies they'd so carefully packed on board weren't going to come free of their moorings and wreak havoc throughout the cargo hold. Every slosh and gurgle of water against her hull was worth a gasp of terror as they listened for the gush of the ocean cracking her open like an egg and breaking in to sink them all.

Every ship leaks, but never had the bilge water collecting in the hollow of her belly been watched with such interest, in the tiny light Rorvik managed to kindle towards the end of the storm. All eyes had turned to the sloshing pool that seeped into crates and lunged at them in great leaps as the ship continued to toss and pitch.

When the storm had finally let up and the sun had staggered out into the sky, Eret had put everything else aside, ordering his men to go over every finger-length of the ship, searching for cracks, breaches, holes, anything that would take them to the bottom.

They'd found several, grievous wounds in the skin of her hull with water bleeding in, but on the open ocean they couldn't do much to repair her. Eret had broken out every flask and bucket and keg still aboard, emptying them of all but the fresh water – nocaptain would _ever_ discard fresh water – and wading in side by side with everyone else to bail her out.

She had been seaworthy enough to get them here, if only barely. She will not be in any shape to get them away. And that's assuming that these Berkians haven't sunk her entirely or stripped her for parts, as unpredictable as they seem to be.

One moment negotiating, the next on the attack. One year fighting dragons, the next playing with them. Eret doesn't know where to start or what to think.

Figuring them out is still better than considering that they might have destroyed his ship, though. That thought hurts. Eret loves his ship.

And without her, he is a dead man.

Eret has to get out of here. He has to somehow put together enough of a shipment to placate Drago, who is doubtless already enraged that Eret is late. He's not particularly happy about it, but as tempted as he is to give up and stay here, he knows Drago Bludvist will find him. Drago Bludvist will _always_ find him, whether he likes it or not. And what sort of mood Drago will be in at that point will depend on whether Eret lazed around in a cage like one of his own dragons, or if Eret did his job as he's expected to.

However pleasant a safe harbor this is for now, even if they are locked up, it can't last.

Ironically, this mad place may yet save all their lives, because there are dragons everywhere. He _needs_ those dragons, and the knowledge leads him to his worst plan yet.

Even as he considers it, he knows there's no way he and his men can take over Berk. They're badly outnumbered. Even if this was an unarmed farming village – and it assuredly isn't; this is an island that has been in the middle of a war for hundreds of years, overrun by people for whom battle is a way of life – he and his crew wouldn't get far. Also, Eret wouldn't even know where to start fighting that many dragons, assuming that the dragons would fight alongside the Vikings.

That's still unbelievably strange.

And what dragons they are. They're all but tame, wandering around the village freely. Eret's trappers could fill up the hold in hours rather than months, and most of those hours would be moving the beasts.

They even wander in here! A Gronkle trundled in not long ago, looking for something as it followed a scent trail, and trundled on out again entirely undisturbed by the hunters watching it open-mouthed. Half the people who came in here to chat or trade or ask for news from the outside world had one of those useless big-eyed miniature dragons perched on a shoulder or, in one case, riding proudly on the man's helmet. A Zippleback nosed open the outside doors and put its heads in, staring with interest at the prisoners. Before they ended up here, Eret had seen dragons following people around, begging for scraps, scratching themselves against the sides of houses, and flying back and forth carelessly.

Those dumb little shoulder-sitter things even beg from Eret's own crew, darting in here and chirping plaintively before snatching anything unguarded and edible they can find! Even as Eret watches, yet another one squirms in through the door where it's been left ajar, staring around with interest before scampering over to a cell Eret can't see into from here.

"Hey!" Grayden yelps a minute later. "Gerroutofit – that's mine!"

Laughter breaks out as the little dragon makes its escape through the bars of Grayden's cell with one of the man's boots stuck on its head. So blinded, it blunders around in the hallway, shrieking a hollow protest. Grayden curses at it, and everyone else laughs at him. A chant of "Hop! Hop! Hop!" suggests that he was chasing it around with the other boot on. Those not watching him cheer the little creature on as it careens off walls and cell doors and paws frantically at the boot.

Finally it comes in reach of one of the waving arms stuck through the bars, and Ascanius holds it in place carefully with one hand while extracting it from the boot with the other. When he lets it go, blinking in silliness and the half-light, it rubs its face against his hand in gratitude, purring.

"Awww…" says Ascanius, petting the little dragon. "Don't be so stupid, little guy. Hey, Grayden, catch!"

The boot bounces off the bars of Grayden's cell as the man fumbles the catch, falling just slightly out of his reach.

"I hate you," Grayden says, fuming, as he tries to get his arm further through the bars to reach his boot. "Hey, Andvari, you want to help me out any?"

"No way. Having one of those boots in here is bad enough. You sure it didn't get its tail stuck in the other one first?"

"I hate you too!"

"Hey!" Ascanius protests, still petting that damn little dragon, which has curled itself around his hand in a full-body hug. "It's not Soren's fault Grayden's feet stink."

"Soren?" half a dozen voices chorus.

"I'm gonna call him Soren," Ascanius says.

"No," Eret interrupts, rolling his eyes and thudding his head softly against the wall he's sitting against. "No, no, no. And, just for bonuses, no. You aren't keeping the little pest, Ascanius." However much it makes him feel like the bad guy for saying so, as the hunter's face falls, Eret can't imagine how absurd it would be if a ship of dragon trappers had a _mascot_.

"I'm gonna call him Soren anyway."

"You do that."

These dragons are nothing at all like the dragons Drago Bludvist owns and puts to work. Eret has seen the army the dragon-master is building. He doesn't fool himself that he understands its true strength and power, but he's seen enough to know that _that_ is going to change the world.

It's quite simple. Drago has an unstoppable army of dragons. So what Drago wants, Drago gets.

The only thing that could stop Drago would be a more powerful army, a more terrifying leader, and Eret doubts that there is anything else comparable to him out there. Better to stand behind the avalanche than in its path, then.

But these dragons seem to be pets. What kind of lunatics keep giant destructive fire-breathing flying lizards as pets? (Ascanius' new friend is too small to count. Eret could drop-kick the thing over the horizon, and it would probably sit there and let him, the way it's happy to be fussed over by the three perfect strangers occupying that cell.) Clearly the people of this island are even crazier than he thought.

The dragons are even more unlike the ones he's become familiar with in the icy expanses and endless wastes of the far north, but then, they would be. The dragon making Eret's life impossible is no dragon at all.

Not a demon, then, working against them. Not a ghost sabotaging their traps, not a god cursing them, not a spirit turning their prey into their hunters – but Eret would like to forgive himself for thinking so, with the fire and the fear and the howling weather, in the dark.

Just a mad boy with an incredibly dangerous pet that Eret _still_ wants to get his hands (and a very strong chain, and preferably a muzzle, and maybe a weighted net) on.

He's heard a couple of different versions of the story already from those wandering in and out people. Some of his crew had been asleep the first time one of their visitors had asked, "Anyway, what did you do to upset Stoick's dragon kid so badly?"

Eret had leaped to his feet and come straight up to the door, nearly walking into it in his haste. "Wait, _Stoick_ 's kid?"

"Lives with dragons? Rides a Night Fury? Talks like a dragon does? Really doesn't like people much?"

"I seem to remember someone like that," Eret had said dryly.

"Yeah, that's the chief's son. Weird, right? Dragons carried him off as a baby, guess they decided to keep him."

Sometime later, another woman had to tell the story all over again – this time with the addition that dragon kid and Night Fury had told all the dragons to stop attacking humans, and the dragons had done it, which Eret almost believes – for the benefit of the people who had been asleep the first time and wouldn't believe it in the retelling by their crewmates.

Ruffnut had turned up again and tried to tell him that Hiccup – the kid's name is Hiccup – could fly and breathe fire when he wanted to. There was a wistful look in her eyes that Eret's seen before, though, the many times she's described something crazy _she_ wants to do, usually while he tries to find a way to escape while she isn't looking. Eret does not believe that part of the story.

A mad child, Eret revises his estimation grimly, but clever. Mad, but dangerous. Whatever else he may be, this Hiccup is clearly able to plan and scheme and trick, which is actually far more organized than Eret would have expected from a kid who doesn't know whether he's human or beast.

He's more than a little upset about being taken for a fool so easily, as if he'd armed himself with every weapon he could carry and worked up his courage to go after the creature roaring loudly enough to echo back from the hills, only to discover that the terrible monster was nothing more than little Soren in an echo canyon, playing a game of pretend.

Eret's father was right – the north is definitely a cursed place for hunters.

He's part of the way into yet another plan to get out of here and back to Drago's fleet with the hold of his ship full of dragons, revolving around _buying_ the dragons from the islanders. He's just admitted to himself that they aren't selling and he doesn't have anything to trade anyway, with his ship in their hands, when the background noise of his friends chatting to each other and tossing stuff back and forth across the hallway and generally settling in and making themselves comfortable dies away. Looking up from the blank wall he's been staring at, lost in thought, Eret realizes that he's not alone.

Stoick is looming outside the door of Eret's cell, arms folded, looking distinctly unhappy.

There's no way he can stare down Berk's chief, so instead Eret goes for annoying. He knows Stoick doesn't like him. That's fair enough. He doesn't like Stoick much either. The man's a bull-headed, inflexible, entirely humorless lump. And he throws people Eret cares about into cages, even if those people do seem quite content to be there.

"That's quite a kid you have there," he grins, folding his hands behind his head where he sits against the far wall. "You must be real proud."

The hunter thinks that, after careful examination, one eye might have twitched. It's hard to tell through the deafening silence that's spreading through the building, all eyes and all attention turning towards the Viking chief standing in the hall glaring at their leader.

"I mean, I thought I was a wild kid. Ran off a few times. Nearly drowned myself and some of my pals in a cask of ale – quite literally, we drank ourselves so stupid we tried to go swimming in it. Put my cousin's baby sister in a rowboat and set it on fire because we were playing Viking funeral – do you really do that? Seems wasteful; what do you have against boats anyway? But no, never decided to move in with a bunch of dragons and forget how to be a person."

Stoick doesn't make a sound. It's actually scary, but there are all these bars between him and the chieftain, so Eret keeps going. He's just trying to provoke a response, if only so he can react to it. Guessing what Stoick is thinking from here is like playing riddle games with a block of stone or a ship's mast.

"So how come you didn't let him come back? I hear you lost that kid. See you found him again, so what's he doing still running around out in the middle of nowhere playing with dragons? Shouldn't you be teaching him all that fun Viking stuff like –" Eret casts around for fun Viking stuff, finds not very much, rolls onwards anyway – "dying in battle, songs that take three days, hats with horns on them, sailing off over the edge of the world and coming back telling whoppers about giant islands, stuff like that?"

Lots more nothing. Maybe this is a statue. No, it's breathing. And turning red.

"No, no, I get it," Eret says breezily. "If I'd decided I liked dragons better than my own people, my dad would have kicked me out too."

Finally, he gets a response.

"My son is worth you and all your men twice over," Stoick rumbles, sounding like he's speaking through gritted teeth.

Eret grins his most annoying grin, the one that invites people to punch him in the face and hides the fact that he's usually got his sword already half-drawn or an ally sneaking up behind. "Right…you sound real convinced of that." He hasn't forgotten that he asked about the dragon boy and Stoick didn't say a word before tossing him in here instead. On some level, the Viking chief is ashamed of his crazy kid.

…which Eret does not exactly disagree with. The elder Eret really would have disowned his son, and he wouldn't have been wrong to do so, surely?

"Tell me about Drago Bludvist," says Stoick, in probably the most obvious example of _trying to change the subject_ Eret's heard since Norge denied eating the last of the buttered biscuits by claiming that the ship was sinking. (He had. And it wasn't.) "You work for him. What does he want?"

"No thanks," Eret replies. He can't maintain the grin while thinking about Drago, but he can't seem to avoid the topic. "I like all my skin where it is. Look," he adds quickly, as Stoick turns an even deeper shade of angry red and tenses one fist as if considering hurting him to make him talk, "there is nothing you can do to me. Not compared to what _he'll_ do to me if I tell you anything."

To his surprise, Stoick agrees, "All right. Then I'll talk. You work for Drago Bludvist. You're a hunter. So you trap and sell dragons to him."

"Oh, very good," Eret says drolly. But Stoick goes on, a bit of pride creeping into his voice, and suddenly Eret is much less amused.

"My son put a stop to that, didn't he? And he knows you now. Hiccup's clever, and he's stubborn. So you're done anywhere he can find you."

Gods, Eret hopes that isn't true. Drago isn't going to accept excuses like _my trap line was sabotaged by one crazy dragon kid – oh yeah, and all his pet dragons too_.

"I've met Drago."

Now that's a surprise. Maybe that was what got Eret tossed in here rather than his insulting the chief's kid. But Stoick goes on without a pause.

"When something doesn't do what he wants it to, he destroys it. You are one of his hunters, but you don't have any dragons to sell him – there aren't any dragons on your ship anymore, and if you think you're taking ours, you'll find that's not going to go over well here. These dragons are part of my tribe now, so if you so much as grab the end of a tail, I will make you regret it."

Eret makes an irritated mental note to be less obvious. Losing a whole shipment and then washing up on the shore of an island full of all but tame dragons – exhausted as he'd been, he'd probably been drooling. It wasn't much of a plan anyway.

Only now does Stoick crack a smile, which Eret decides is scarier than the silence. He's not wrong.

"You know what? Fine. We'll fix your ship like I agreed. And then you can go back to your master and explain."

"Wait, wait, wait," Eret blurts, scrambling to his feet and stepping up towards the door. "You can't do that to me. Do you have any idea what Drago will do to me if I go back to him empty-handed? What he'll do to all of us? He already warned me once. He'll kill me this time."

 _He'll kill them_ , Eret does not say, seeing through the bars and across the aisle the expressions on the faces of his friends. All of the good humor as they talked and rested and played with Soren and slept in safety has vanished like a sinking ship, flailing to survive but unable to save itself against the inevitable hunger of the ocean.

It's Eret's job to deal with Drago, directly or through one of the warlord's lieutenants, but all of them have been on a delivery run with him. All of them have seen the fleet the dragon-master has amassed around himself, and they know the army he wields is more formidable than anything they've ever seen.

They know enough.

"Or," says Stoick, "we could make a deal."

"I'm listening." There's no hesitation in Eret's voice, no hint of a joke. He's out of ideas. If he and his people stay here, they're doomed when Drago inevitably finds this place – a man with a dragon army isn't the sort of man who will accept the existence of a rival for the control of dragons, even one that doesn't seem to understand what sort of power they have here. If they go…well, Eret at least will not be coming back.

The Viking chief lays it out for him. "Here's how it's going to work. My son is out there, and I need to know what he's facing. If there's even a chance that he's going to cross paths with Drago Bludvist, and if we've made an enemy of Drago by living in peace with dragons… So. We're fixing your ship."

Eret thinks the relief hasn't shown on his face. Even if it does, it doesn't last long.

"You're going to guide _my_ crew to scout out what's going on out there. Your crew stays here."

No, he doesn't like the sound of this anymore.

"Everyone comes back safe," Stoick elaborates, "and they'll be fine. You can take your ship and run for the edge of the world. But if anything happens to any of my people, or my son, or if you don't come back…"

Stoick the Vast thinks about it for a moment. Eret grits his teeth silently, waiting for the threat.

"Well. Like I said. My son is worth you and all of your men twice over."

Eret doesn't know Stoick well enough to tell if the threat is genuine, if the Viking chief would hurt his men to punish him. He knows only that _Drago_ absolutely would, and will. But it's a risk he's not willing to take. At least under these terms, his crew will be safe for a little longer.

He will have to take Stoick up on this deal. He doesn't like it. But he likes the alternative much less, and he is in no position to negotiate.

"I accept," he says, reaching his hand through the bars to seal the agreement.

For now.

* * *

"But we _have_ to go," says Ruffnut. Again.

Astrid does not want the twins on her crew. Stoick has delegated this mission to her, and she can't imagine a faster way to have something go wrong than bringing the twins along. With the twins on board, they might not even get past the lighthouse statues. But here they are, dogging her heels as she walks overland to the shore to check on the progress Gobber and Mulch and Fishlegs – with the occasional help of Bucket, not to mention Fishlegs' Gronkle horde and anyone else who wanders that way and gets roped in – are making on getting the dragon trappers' ship seaworthy again.

She can't even escape them by summoning Stormfly and flying away. While she's been trying her hardest to get people to befriend dragons, to make it normal to have them living side by side with Vikings, to encourage other people to ride on a cooperative dragon's back so that she doesn't feel so much like the freaky center of attention every time she and Stormfly go flying, she kind of wishes that the twins hadn't found a Zippleback almost as dumb as they are. She really can't get away from them now.

Although, knowing the twins as well as she regretfully does, it's highly likely that one day they'll decide that skydiving from dragonback sounds like a good idea because of the funny splat at the bottom.

"We really do," Tuffnut agrees solemnly, striking a pose of outrageous nobility that at least allows Astrid to take a few more steps without having him practically treading on her feet. "It's important."

 _Don't ask, don't ask, don't ask,_ Astrid chants to herself in vain.

"Okay, I'll bite. _Why_ is it important?"

To her surprise, the reason doesn't begin with a breathless exclamation of "Eret son of Eret –" from Ruffnut. Quite the opposite, in fact.

"Because that dragon boy is even crazier than we are, so we gotta stick up for him," Ruffnut declares.

"Yeah," Tuffnut agrees. "And he's getting away with it. Respect."

Astrid blinks at them. Maybe blinking is secret twin code for _please, tell me more_ – which would explain a lot, since they never shut up – because they seem to take it as an invitation.

"Look, people are always telling us that we're crazy, and that our ideas are stupid, and that they're not going to work because 'things dinnae work tha' way, muttonheads' –" Astrid thinks that might have been Ruffnut's imitation of Gobber, but it's anyone's guess – "and then we get yelled at and get in trouble so we have to come up with something else instead."

"You know I'm usually the one yelling at you, right?"

"Yeah, but," she persists, "Hiccup's crazy, right? And people told him his ideas were stupid. I mean, he thinks he's a dragon even though he's not! Duh… But he _won_. And even the _chief_ had to accept that, 'cause it was easier to accept his crazy than fight him over it."

Tuffnut looks impressed. "It's like, he's bending everyone else's reality around his reality until it works the way he wants it to." Broad gestures that might be meant to represent bending, or possibly reality, or maybe everyone, accompany this statement as Tuffnut waves his hands back and forth and pulls a face of either deep enlightenment or profound stomach pain. "He's rearranging the world with his craziness, and he's getting away with it! That's _seriously_ _awesome_."

Astrid opens her mouth to say something, can't figure out what she wants to say, and closes it again. What she finally comes out with is, "That makes even less sense than your plan to learn to fly by tying a chicken to your head."

"Hey, that would've worked! I just didn't have enough chickens!"

"And that stupid giant thing of Snotlout's tried to eat you. That was pretty funny. Anyway, that's why we gotta come with you, Astrid!"

"Also, if you don't invite us we'll just get Barf and Belch to – _mmmphmmmphmmmph_ –"

"Shut up shut up shut up!" Ruffnut snarls, grabbing her brother in a headlock in her haste to clap her hands over his mouth. "We can't tell her about that part of the plan, it's a secret!"

"Augh!" Tuffnut screams, shaking her off with the ease of long practice and a bony elbow to the gut. "I'm blind! What did you do? Evil female! Traitor to the Thorston name! I always knew this day would come!"

She's knocked his helmet over his eyes, is all. But Astrid manages to escape while they shout at each other over which of them trusts the other less, knowing even as she does that she can't argue with logic that doesn't make much sense.

It's quite likely that Ruffnut and Tuffnut get away with their endless pranks just because it's so hard to do anything about them, although she does kind of see their point, because Hiccup gets away with insisting that he's a dragon for the same reason.

Then again, if she's spent enough time with the twins that she's starting to see things from their point of view, she's long since overdue to go jump in the lake.

Compared to Ruffnut and Tuffnut, the bustling chaos of a ship under repair is a relief. Eret's ship has been hauled up into a makeshift dry-dock on one of the low beaches rather than left moored at the waterfront, and one of the ships that Dagur abandoned in their harbor has been drawn up beside it. The Berserker ship was too damaged to salvage, so it's being broken up for ready material to repair the hunter's ship.

Both beached with the help of dragon muscles, Astrid happens to know – Gobber had come to her for dragons that could be persuaded to hold on to ropes and pull on command. It hadn't been hard to get the idea across to them at all, especially with the promise of several barrels of fish and enthusiastic praise from their human audience, and a job that would have taken an entire work team of humans most of the afternoon was done in a few minutes.

At this stage in the repair process, there's not much for Astrid to do. She can sail a ship; she can command a crew; she will do both once they're at sea, but for now she climbs the ladder from beach to deck and starts taking a good look around, getting a feel for the ship.

As she walks, stepping lightly around piles of rope and stopping to pet one of Fishlegs' many Gronkles, which is lying on its back with a bucket of tar resting on its stomach so that the furnace inside it keeps the sticky liquid from setting solid, she thinks about her mission.

It's all very well for Stoick to say _go out there and make sure Hiccup is all right_. Stoick will be staying here, fortifying Berk against the threat of this Drago Bludvist finding them and finishing what he'd started all those years ago at the chiefs' moot.

She still doesn't quite believe in this man. He sounds like something made up to scare people, in this new world of dragons and humans living together more or less peacefully. A dragon _army_? Wouldn't that just be a dragon _flock_ , which is plenty intimidating enough whether it's raiding your food supplies or staring you down from the roofs of your own village?

That Stoick believes his story about the attack on the chiefs' moot, Astrid doesn't doubt at all. Besides, she has at least a passing familiarity with the other tribes in the Archipelago, and while she hasn't been keeping track, it does seem that many of the current – or recently deposed – leaders originally took power at about the same time.

It's hard to be sure, because leadership changes hands so often in some of the smaller tribes – which is to say, tribes that aren't Berkians, because Astrid knows with absolute confidence that they are the best at everything, including chiefing – but there are tedious histories lying about, written by people who somehow get the idea that histories of the Archipelago might be interesting reading. (They're not. Last she checked, those volumes had been moved to the attic of Gobber's forge after he'd rescued them from being tossed in the hearth of the Great Hall as firewood during devastating winter one year.)

She'd tried to read them once, regretted it quickly, and skipped ahead through far too many pages until she started to see names she recognized. Reading about people she knew, people she might have to deal with as a chief herself someday if they didn't get killed first, proved to be much more entertaining.

But everyone was terrified of dragons back then. An army? No way. Isn't it more likely that this Drago Bludvist is a con man of some kind, with a small flock of trained dragons – like Fishlegs' horde of Gronkles, only fiercer – and he'd counted on that fear of dragons to make a bigger impression than he could actually fill?

Astrid will have to see this army to believe it, and she won't be easily fooled. It doesn't take very many well-trained dragons at all to scare people. Look at how few of their own it took to chase that Outcast ship off, and the Outcasts had sued for peace almost the next day, which was absolutely down to the impact their dragons had made and nothing at all to do with the fact that Outcast Island doesn't provide enough food to supply a name-day party, much less a campaign.

But Stoick is worried – even scared – that either this man is coming here or Hiccup is flying off to confront him, and if dividing Berk's leaders up to cover all possibilities is what it takes to alleviate her mentor's fears, then that is what they will do.

She owes him that much, and probably more.

More than anything, Astrid doesn't want to let the chief down, but she's not at all sure she can find Hiccup if he doesn't want to be found. He's never wanted to be found before. Hiccup is only comfortable dealing with humans on his own terms and no one else's.

She's tried to get Stormfly to track him and Toothless down. The Nadder will never do it. The one time (before yesterday) she asked Stormfly to follow them, they'd been led on a wild chase until Night Fury and dragon-boy tired of what they clearly thought was a fun game. They'd rounded a crag to find Toothless hovering in midair, ready to dive to the attack, snarling fiercely.

Stormfly had whimpered, crooned something Astrid could have sworn was an apology, and then turned around and taken her rider back to Berk, despite Astrid's orders to the contrary.

Down at the prow of the ship, another one of Fishlegs' Gronkles knocks someone over as it piles into the crowd of ship-repairing volunteers, and Gobber shouts at it to stay out of the way. The one with the bucket on its stomach wriggles anxiously, torn between wanting to go to its friend's defense and its instructions to stay put and keep the tar warm. Hurriedly, Astrid steps in and wrestles the bucket down before it slops all over the place and glues the stocky little dragon to the deck more or less permanently. Rolling back to its feet, it butts its head against her gratefully before buzzing off to see what's going on elsewhere.

"Hey, where's Daisies going?" Fishlegs asks, clambering up the ladder out of the open cargo hold. "I told her to stay – oh, thanks Astrid. Pass that here?"

She's given up commenting on the things people name 'their' dragons. Dragons don't care what you call them, as long as you're consistent, she's found, which is why the village is full of dragons with names like Eggbrains and Lumpy and Kiteface and Loudmouth. Stand in the middle of town and yell, "Big Guy!", and you're likely to get at least four dragons trotting up to you looking for a treat. Her next-door neighbor has a Zippleback called Shock and Awe, which Astrid thinks at least shows some creativity.

The first time Johann came back after he'd learned about the new truce with the dragons and seen that the dragons were starting to live in the village, he'd brought along several boxes of thin metal plates with holes punched in them, and started hawking them as name plates for dragon collars – etching extra, of course. Some of the dragons thus adorned are still wearing them, although quite a few hadn't liked having cords put around their necks, and the fashion had faded anyway as people got better at telling different dragons apart.

Sometimes she wonders if dragons understand their own names, if those names have familiar words in them. Does Stormfly know what her name means, or does she just know the sound of it? She can never remember what Fishlegs has called all of his Gronkles – she's not even sure how many there are. Five or six, probably.

"How's it going down there?" she asks instead, handing the bucket off to Fishlegs and sitting down on the edge of the hold so they're eye to eye, dangling her legs into the open space and resisting the urge to kick her heels back and forth like a kid. Well, maybe she'll just do it once. And then they're moving anyway, so…

"Uh…fine. Totally fine." Fishlegs is a rotten liar. Everything he feels is right there on his face in plain view. Some people are blank rock – Fishlegs is a freshly carved rune stone.

"Fishlegs, if this ship sinks while I'm on it, I will come back and haunt you by moving the bedcovers off your feet every hour, or just as you're about to fall asleep, whichever happens first, for the rest of your life."

He actually squeaks, nearly dropping the bucket and rescuing it with his other hand just in time. Of course, in the process he lets go of the ladder, and Fishlegs and bucket almost go over backwards. "You'd do that?" he asks, wide-eyed, when he's regained his balance and sorted out his hands.

"Yes. Yes, I would. That is definitely what I will do. So, once again, Fishlegs – how's it going down there?"

"Oh, the damage wasn't anything we couldn't fix. We've mostly got everything patched up down here. But don't tell Gobber, okay? It's just, there were maps, and I wanted to look at them, so I told him I needed to do a lot more work in the hold, and…"

"And you've been hiding down there with the maps ever since." Astrid refrains from rolling her eyes. Fishlegs and books and maps and scrolls…he went missing for three days once when they were kids, and it turned out that he'd been holed up with the Bork papers and had lost track of time although not, it must be said, of meals.

"Maybe? Anyway, the last of the tar set solid while I was reading, so I asked Daisies to keep it warm so it'd melt, and…I suppose I should go finish up before it sets again. Want to see how it looks so far?" he calls back as he climbs down the ladder again.

Astrid follows him into the hold, which smells strongly of tar and Gronkle in about equal quantities, and still slightly of wet dragon trappers. The first two scents are preferable. The remainder of his horde of Gronkles is piled up around an open chest, around which a stack of papers has been abandoned in some disarray.

"Don't worry, Astrid," he assures her, picking up a brush and painting a wide swatch of tar across the only part of the bulkhead not yet coated, "this ship isn't going to sink. I'd stake my life on it. And I will, because I'm coming too."

"Oh? You are?" Astrid asks, flipping through the pages and making no sense of them at all. Whoever drew these doesn't make maps the same way they do here on Berk. That, or things are really weird out there beyond the Archipelago. "Since when?"

"You need someone who knows to sail a ship, and you know how much I love sailing. I would have won the regatta this year if Snotlout hadn't sicced that horrible thing of his on my boat."

Between pauses to dip his brush back into the bucket, pet the nearest Gronkle, detour around it to pet all of them in turn, and then a mad dash back to the bulkhead with a yelp as the tar begins to dry on the brush, he adds, "Besides, we're going to look for Hiccup, right? The same Hiccup who knows more about dragons than any man alive? Who's getting at least a whole page in my new _Book of Dragons_ to himself? I need more notes on him, Astrid!"

"No, we're looking for a dangerous madman with an army of dragons, who will burn this ship and everyone aboard it to the waterline if he gets half a chance," Astrid taunts him – it's always so easy to make the color drain from Fishlegs' face and set all of him to shaking. "This is a reconnaissance mission, not a dragon safari."

Fishlegs looks terrified for a moment longer before scraping up his courage and saying, "Maybe, but I still want to go. Or do you have too many people already?"

Dammit. He probably knows she barely has anyone. Just herself so far, and that slick-natured trapper Eret, and – ye gods! – the twins.

The thing is, most people are tired of fighting. Most Berkians have been fighting all their lives, and for them, the novelty of peace with the dragons and peace with their neighbors except for the occasional squabble, quickly put paid to, is like a glimpse of summer after the longest of coldest winters. No one is in a particular hurry to run off and find trouble. Not with crops to get in for what will probably be their best harvest in living memory, not when for the first time they don't have to mount armed guard over their herds from one sunrise to the next, when there's a chance, at last, to rest and enjoy the metaphorical sunshine.

Not all that deep down, Berkians have just wanted to keep their homes and families and livelihoods in one piece, and for them, that's enough.

Most of the time Astrid is perfectly content to be there among them, sharing in their small dramas and strange quarrels. The ordinary things, like a week-long debate over the name of a new baby, with the question only settled after an elaborate competition between its mother's family and its father's family, not to mention the outside interests of both parents' respective best friends – there's a fantastic joy to that that Astrid loves being part of.

But she trained all her life to be a warrior, knowing that she would find her distinction in battle and her heart in the song of blood and steel, and to Astrid, fighting to defend her people is still glorious.

So she's willing to run off into the middle of gods-know-where to meet a yet-unknown enemy that scares the bravest man she's ever known; she's eager to face that challenge and return in triumph.

The rest of the village…not so much. They've already had their fill of war, and know better than to court it.

She can't even bring Gobber, who knows more than he lets on and is surprisingly useful in often surprising ways, because Stoick has dibs on the blacksmith for preparing Berk against the invasion he's expecting.

"Okay, fine. You're on board," she tells Fishlegs. "As long as you help me tie the twins to the mast the minute we get out of the harbor."

"The twins are coming along?" Fishlegs stares at her as if she's suddenly turned green.

She shrugs. "Can't stop them. Oh, but you're not bringing all your pets along."

"What?" Fishlegs protests, face falling. "I can't leave them here! They'll be all lonely without me! Who's going to feed them? Or scratch Mouse when he can't sleep, or sing the dinner song with Minnow, or make sure Horrorcow doesn't eat too much granite? And, and, and…" He trails off under the assault of concern for his pets, and rallies with, "You're bringing Stormfly!"

Now Astrid does roll her eyes – of course she's bringing Stormfly. From the sound of it, Stormfly will be the sanest soul on board. "I said not all, Fishlegs." Actually, she's hoping to bring more dragons than humans. At least dragons listen to her, or Stormfly, most of the time, and dragons will be harder for Eret to overpower when he (inevitably, she's sure) makes a break for it. She does not by any stretch trust Eret, and whatever her crew shakes out to be, she's going to have enough people to solidly outnumber him. She's not afraid of him, but she has no desire to watch him all the time.

The sole benefit of bringing the twins along is that Ruffnut will be happy to have Eret-watching duty. There. She's reconciled herself to bringing the twins.

"You can bring one of them."

"Three!" Fishlegs counters.

"Two," she offers.

"Fine… But how am I gonna pick just two?"

"Pick the ones that don't get seasick. That's an order." Whoever knew that Gronkles were prone to seasickness, at least before Fishlegs tried to pack them onto his sailboat as he tested the craft before the race?

"Ooh…that does narrow it down."

"Hah! You're not going to get anywhere if _Fishlump_ is the best you can do!"

Astrid doesn't need to look up to recognize the voice, but she does anyway. Snotlout is sprawled over the edge of the cargo hold, chin propped up in one hand and the other carving notches out of the deck with a knife about the size of a Terrible Terror, his usual smug smirk firmly applied to his face.

"Go away, Snotlout," Fishlegs growls back.

"Yeah? Why don't you make me? Oh wait. You can't. Why don't you just put that bucket on your head and keep it there 'til the tar dries, Fishlegs? The _lady_ and I were talking."

The aforementioned lady entertains ladylike thoughts of shoving that knife somewhere unpleasant and finding an apple to wedge in the other end, which she thinks would improve Snotlout no end. "What do you want, and will you go away if you get it?"

"Hah. _No_. I'm here to offer you my help, which you clearly _really_ need. I'm afraid I just can't let you sail off to face a terrible enemy with only this lump to protect you. But you're in luck – I'm volunteering to come with you. I'll be the sword at your side!"

Astrid smiles, walks over to the ladder, climbs a few rungs, and reaches up to shake his hand…only to grab his wrist, flip him over the edge of the pit, and throw him to the deck.

"Hey! I'm tryna help! Owowow!"

If she twists really hard, his ear might actually come off, and then he'll look even more ridiculous than he usually does, but Astrid gives it another twist anyway. "First things first, Snotlout. You do not now, nor have you ever, _let_ me do anything. You are not in charge of me. In fact, I am in charge of you, and it's time you got over that. Or we'll have to finish this one day with axes, and you know what's going to happen then? I'm gonna win. Clear?"

"Clear," Snotlout chokes out.

"So, let's try that again," Astrid says cheerfully, letting go of his ear and taking her knee off his chest so he can breathe again. Discreetly, she wipes her hand on the edge of the maps chest and wonders if they can make "bathe Snotlout day" a Berk holiday the way "bathe Gobber day" is a no-holds-barred adventure. She doubts it. People like Gobber a whole lot more than they do Snotlout. "What, Snotlout, do you want?"

"I want to come on this scouting mission with you," the arrogant young warrior – slightly more cowed, now – says.

"See? Was that so hard? Next question. Why?"

Snotlout puts his chin back in his hand and sulks, sitting cross-legged on the deck and glowering. "I'm bored. There's no dragons left to fight, and I liked fighting dragons. Except Fearsome, 'cause he's awesome."

Fearsome is an oversized, ill-tempered Monstrous Nightmare who is the clearest case of like calling to like that Astrid has ever seen. He's just as much of a bully as Snotlout, entirely untrainable because Snotlout is the only one he listens to, and Snotlout encourages him. And even then, neither of them listens very well.

"And Stoick won't give me and my friends a ship so we can go out and kick Dagur's butt from here to the fog banks."

"That's because he thinks you'll run off with it, turn pirate, and start six new wars with everyone in the Archipelago inside of a week. And you know why he thinks this? Because I told him you would. And I'm not wrong, am I?"

"…we maybe might not," Snotlout denies unconvincingly. "There's nothing else to do! But an evil warlord with a dragon _army_? I want in! Bring him on! C'mon, Astrid, please!"

It's quite possible that if he tries to follow the ship on Fearsome, which he would probably try, Fearsome will just eat him. But there's no guarantee. Astrid wouldn't be terribly sorry if that happened, either, except that it would be a significant setback in her ongoing project to keep the peace between dragons and humans. She does believe him, though, that he's simply spoiling for a fight.

She'll have to compromise.

"Okay, fine. You can come. I'm putting you in charge of making sure Eret doesn't double-cross us, because I don't trust that guy one bit."

He practically lights up. "Oh, you bet! That slimy bastard stole my Ruffnut, too! He won't make a move without me knowing about it. Lemme go get Gustav, and he'll round up the gang."

"No," Astrid snaps. "I said _you_ could come along. You are not bringing all your thugs and bullies along too. Definitely not." Could she probably use the extra hands on deck? Yes. Hands belonging to Snotlout's minions, most of which are as bad as he is? No. She'd rather have not enough people than have the ship overrun with teenage boys like Gustav, who is actually, through great effort and practice and determination, more annoying than Snotlout.

"Wait, I'm not leaving my babies here if his gang are staying!" protests Fishlegs. "Poor Mouse won't stand a chance! You know how they pick on him!"

Snotlout scowls at him. "I'll make them leave your pathetic little rock-eaters alone, okay? If that's what it takes to get me to this totally badass fight. Hey, can Fearsome come, at least?"

"You mean your minions are driving you crazy with nothing to take all that stupid macho posturing out on, and this is your chance to get away," Fishlegs observes with just a flash of cunning.

"Hey! That's not what I said!"

Astrid leaves them bickering in the hold, confiscating Snotlout's knife as she goes. He doesn't even notice, too busy getting up in Fishlegs' face and trying to intimidate him. It's not working – Snotlout, for all his confrontational attitude, is not really all that tall, and Fishlegs outweighs him by a lot now. If anything's going to make Fishlegs stand his ground against his longtime tormentor, it'll be Snotlout insulting his pets.

If he's not too busy setting up Berk's anti-dragon defenses again, maybe Stoick can break up Snotlout's gang while the ringleader is distracted chasing specters and attempting to incinerate Eret with his eyes for accidentally stealing Ruffnut's ever-fickle attention. And then there really will be peace on Berk.

Still, Astrid can't promise that she's not just going to drop most of her crew off the side of the ship the minute she's over the horizon.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note:** This chapter ends in a tense place. If you are not fond of cliffhangers, I will understand if you wait a week until Part Eight of this story is posted (Part Seven can be read independently).

 _ **Stormfall,**_ **Part Six**

The man who faces them, as Toothless stands his ground with his heart-beloved companion pressed low to his shoulders ready to fly or to leap or to guard his back if they must fight, belongs to the ship as if it were his own home-cave. He is unlike the humans who scattered and ran and only turned to stare when they were out of the reach of Toothless' claws, and every step he takes towards them – towards them, when they are snarling a threat that makes even much larger dragons back away! – tells them that this is their enemy.

He does not hesitate, but does not leap to pounce, moving towards the dragon-pair with the steady lope of a predator. He is a dark man, solid and heavy, and there are tangles in him, not just in his fur but in his scent and in the way he looks at them. His gaze is hungry and revolted all at once, eager for battle and disdainful of them at the same time, and there is both fierce hatred in him and a terrible emptiness.

He is a Knotted Man, Hiccup sees in him, sensing a wrongness in him that makes the young dragon want to pull away, recoiling and licking and spitting the scent of their enemy from his mouth as he would the stench of old bones hidden to go rotten and reeking.

The Knotted Man is like a statue – statues are shapes in stone with faces that humans make, and it must be a magic to make shapes grow in stone so neatly – but a statue that has been old and worn and forgotten out in the sea air for so long that it has changed its shape and melted after so much sun, and now the shape of him snarls at all things.

Toothless coils to leap, snarling _back away!_ at him as he approaches still. If it was strange for them to willingly go so close to humans before, it is a terrible wrongness for a human to walk to them with so little fear in his pacing. Most humans are terrified of Toothless, they run away when they see him snarl with all his fangs bared and hear the shrieking whine of blasting-fire, or they stop and stare and step away trembling with soft moans.

But the eyes of the Knotted Man are fixed on Toothless' eyes, staring him down as if the Knotted Man were a dragon himself, advancing on a rival to steal his kill away or because there is a younger or smaller or less confident dragon that he can strike away and send howling just to show that he is more powerful. The lines of his broad body say _stay!_ and _strong_ and _sure._

Unwilling to give ground and back away, but unwilling also to let the Knotted Man come too close – why is he not afraid? – Toothless circles around as he would in a battle with another dragon, both circling to find the strongest footing to pounce from, and his wings spread to make him bigger and more intimidating, ready to fly.

The movement draws the eyes of the Knotted Man away from Toothless' defiant stare, and only then does his gaze fall on Hiccup, who is mirroring Toothless' movements with his own body, shoulders hunched and teeth bared, claws curled to fight. But he keeps all his paws loose in the flying-with to signal to Toothless that there is some thing of humans at his flank where he cannot see, so that Toothless can respond to his signals and step around it and not surrender the advantage of the first leap to a stumble.

But it is the Knotted Man who stumbles, hesitating for only a heartbeat as his heavy eyes fix on the dragon-feral rider.

Hiccup understands in that moment that the Knotted Man had not seen him, had seen only Toothless, which does not displease the young dragon at all, because it is right, because they are two-who-are-one and there is no distinction that matters between them. He sees that their enemy had been eager and ready to fight with the black dragon, confident and unafraid, and is now surprised to notice that Toothless is not alone.

Wrong-footed, the Knotted Man recoils, and for the first time other messages show in his movements. Where before he was confident, with a strange and frightening hunger at the sight of Toothless so defiant, now there is disbelief in the silent speaking of his body. There is horror, and surprise.

And then most of all there is disgust, like a dragon who wants nothing to do with the rowdiness of hatchlings but who has found that the babies too young to learn have trespassed in his nest and messed there, leaving it reeking. He looks as if he has taken a great mouthful of fish and found that they were long-dead and falling apart, the gleam of their scales not a shine of freshness and life but the slime of rot. But more so, such terrible disgust that Hiccup has no other things to compare it to, as if he has seen the most terrible thing he could imagine and found it worse than he ever supposed.

That disgust is as deep and dark as the endless ocean, and yet somehow he snaps it back and buries it again, and in less time than it takes for Hiccup to draw in his own shocked breath at the hatred in the eyes of the Knotted Man that uncertainty is gone. Once again his footsteps are confident and sure, and now they are even angrier than before.

All around the open space, as Toothless hisses a warning – _mine mine mine he mine me fight me fierce mine mine!_ – the staring humans shy away from the Knotted Man as he passes them, stepping aside and giving way before him so that wherever he moves the ground is cleared before him. He does not need to quarrel for space or demand that they go or step lightly around them: they cower in small movements with their bodies and the turning away of their eyes that say _leader_. The Knotted Man moves as if all the world is his and everyone in it.

The recognition is a rush of bitter and poisonous joy in Hiccup's heart, and the boiling taste of rage in his throat, because he can see that the Knotted Man is the Alpha of the humans here. This is his nest and his flock – and _all within it_ are under his dominion.

And that means that all that they have seen, the reek of dragon blood and the suffering of the tired ones, the whip-slashes across the flanks and the tender nose of Weary She, the chains, the grief, the pain – this is on him!

It is still a bit the fault of _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ that their friends are here, but that is not a thought for battle – Hiccup sets it aside as a thought for later as if he were hiding an interesting toy from the rough playing and ready thieving of his cousins. When there is no fight and no rage, when they have time to think and talk about all they have done, when there are others to share the tales of their doings with, then is the time for such grief and guilt. Thoughts for now are of defiance and outrage, and it is easier and more gratifying to turn that outward against an enemy they can face.

 _You!_ Hiccup snarls, twining his voice around Toothless' so that they are singing keening cries of hunting and battle with one complex sound. _Angry angry angry this hate this you this we fight you back-down us fierce us together challenge protecting WRONGNESS here raging you thief you threat thief you hate!_

It is a relief to scream, letting out the seething rage that _still_ will not burst forth as fire, even if the Knotted Man will not understand all that they are saying. He is human, humans do not understand dragons more than a bit, and even when they speak in signals that are clear to dragons they do not listen to their own signals. Humans are like loud-voice dragon-cousins, speaking loudly but hearing nothing.

So it is a terrible shock when he answers their challenge in their own manner, loud and deliberate but clear, clearer than they have ever seen a human signal, in a voice like one of their own kin, and crushing with its force.

 _Small!_ he roars, _you small you down! Down now! Obey! I big! I command! You down!_

Startled, Toothless makes a tiny leap, going nowhere but up and down again to find his feet in a new strange world, every line of him tensing, and on his shoulders Hiccup makes a small soft noise that means the same thing: _what?_

They have never met a human that dances their language of gesture and body language and raw sound so fluently, with such intent. There is the human _Uh-strrrrTT_ , who speaks as dragons do somewhat, but they can always see her trying. She tries too hard, and talks like a hatchling walks, stumbling and falling over and having to think about each step, and often doing it wrong and falling because she does not know any better. She talks with trying-hard and is so proud of herself when she only falls over some, and they are amused by her as they would be by the playing of hatchlings.

But the Knotted Man speaks to them without hesitation, with the same confidence that he shows in his movements as he prowls after them in pretending-lazy, watching, hunting circles.

Flailing for understanding and not yet finding it, Hiccup answers in earnest. If the Knotted Man understands –! How can he understand the speaking of dragons and still be Alpha over such suffering? How can he see their signals – and he does, because when Hiccup lifts a paw in a _look-at-me_ gesture that bats at the air the Knotted Man looks at him, waiting for his speaking with the disgust in his eyes restrained only by the tips of claws – and still not care? How can he see the dragon-pair and not the many many many others all around him?

 _Talking me you listen now_ , the dragon-feral demands, whistling shrilly to get his attention. In his confusion and fear he falls back on the only language he speaks fluently, all his human words forgotten. For him to speak to a human in words they have to be trying to understand him, to be patient with him, and to be willing to teach him words he does not know and climb from the bottom of the cliff to meet him on a ledge halfway when he cannot say their sounds, which have so many strange harsh noises that do not roll easily from throat and tongue.

It is maybe good a little to be able to speak with humans, because they do not listen to dragon-sounds, but for now Hiccup forgets entirely that he can speak to humans sometimes, which is a new way he can be a useful dragon, contributing to his flock.

 _This what this why? why? this don't-like this bad bad bad look!_ he snarls, gesturing at the dragons still turning all their fire-light on their fighting, which is still a battle of posturing and staring rather than one of fangs and claws. Many fights end there, before blood is drawn or scales are torn, with challenged dragon backing down or challenger deciding that it is not a fight they want to start.

 _Hurting dragons hurting bad hate angry angry! not-you you go go away this-here_ – he points to Licks Stones, who is standing still bound in harness watching dully, as if he does not know the dragon-pair. As if he does not remember playing at hide-and-seek with them all across the ice spars surrounding their home, that time when Hiccup was hiding and climbed too far and cornered himself in a place he could not climb down from, and because Licks Stones had been following the dragon-boy to steal his hiding place for his own, it was Licks Stones who climbed up after him and carried him back down to safer ground. They had laughed about that together so greatly, Licks Stones teasing the little boy for his recklessness, that they were still laughing when Toothless found them, and then laughed even more at Toothless' disappointment when he learned that they had not hidden _at all_.

– _he ours!_ Hiccup claims him, in a sharp gesture and a possessive snarl, daring the Alpha to challenge him. Licks Stones does not belong to this tangled-up Alpha of humans, he belongs to the king!

The Alpha sees all this, jowls curling away from human teeth in revulsion and disdain, and answers with a roar.

 _Submit!_ he commands again, lifting the stick he holds in one paw and slamming it down against the back of the ship. The claw of it cracks against the ground and the ground shudders beneath it like a stomping paw. _I command! Obey!_

Again and again he stomps, advancing on them with such sureness and conviction that the dragon-pair can almost see him as an enormous dragon, the stick becoming heavy sharp-clawed feet and the flare of wings, the dark Knotted Man figure at its heart the weight that will crush small dragons when it catches them. His gestures make his body larger just as Toothless does when he spreads his wings.

It should be an empty gesture, he should be a man with a stick. They have surely fought more dangerous things than a human with a stick and a loud voice. They faced an Alpha of dragons who was an eater of dragons also, and all alone they burned her nose and escaped and brought ice to quench her fires.

They ventured into the deepest and darkest of caves in the winding tunnels beneath the earth that went on forever, into the darkness-made-real breathed out by the nest of Dark Things that lived there, where even Toothless' fires and his darkness-song could not see, and although they were afraid they faced the Dark Things together, with eyes open, and found the light again. They stepped softly, grieving and in pain, among the bodies of dragon-kin who fell into traps set not to capture and wound but to kill, and they waited on guard beside the body of one who could only wait for the coldness of death to find him, too wounded to make that death chase and hunt for him, so that he would not be alone.

But the Knotted Man speaks as dragons do, as if he were one of them but _wrong_ , wrong inside and wrong outside like he is some terrible pretending of a dragon. He sees and he understands but he does not care, and there is a terrible wrongness about him that makes him more menacing and fearsome and threatening than his size and his stick and his snarling.

Hiccup is familiar with wolves. Dragons do not hunt them but they fight them sometimes for prey and respect them as rivals not to be baited. Wolves foam at the mouth when there is madness and the death that bites and betrays in them.

It occurs to Hiccup now that humans foam at the mind.

He can smell the death that bites and betrays in this human, can sense the madness. He cannot see the foam or catch the scent of it with his nose, so it must be a thing in the mind, because things in the mind can be sensed in a way that is _like_ catching a scent but cannot be seen.

The fear of the Knotted Man catches hold and becomes a deep white snowdrift of terror, paralyzing and freezing and blinding, so that Hiccup is lost in the fear and breathlessness, flailing to get out but finding no solid ground and sinking. Caught in the force of the Knotted Man's gaze, he is momentarily alone. Instincts left over from younger days, those of a small and relatively defenseless creature afraid of predators both wild beast and human, wail that he has been _seen_ , that only when he cannot be seen is he safe, and that child inside whimpers in fear and begs him to look away and run.

But the Knotted Man does not have many eyes, and he cannot pin both of them beneath his gaze. Toothless roars _fury!_ at the feeling of his beloved-companion's fright, a pure clear note of protection and determination that burns away the terror-snowdrift.

The Knotted Man roars back at him – _you down obey submit!_ – but Toothless will not listen anymore. He too can sense the wrongness in the Knotted Man, and knows that madness cannot be spoken to. Even wolves drive away those of their packs that foam with madness because madness bites friend and pack and enemy and prey equally and its teeth are sickness and poison.

A glance over his shoulder, quick as fangs snapping out, tells Toothless that his other half is shaken but not broken, still where he should be. As the black dragon prepares to spring, a shudder runs through his shoulders, the pull of muscles all the warning Hiccup needs, because at once he lowers his paws to wrap through the flying-with and brace for battle.

Howling a _challenge_ -scream, Toothless leaps, diving past a wide swing of the striking-stick and clawing for the underbelly humans bare always, standing on their back legs as they do, almost inviting dragons to strike at it. But the Knotted Man jumps away, moving quickly, and brings the stick around to thump against the ground again, warning Toothless off.

 _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ recognize the behavior of a duel perfectly. Dragons fight over food, for space to perch and to sleep, to impress their mates or to chase off rivals, or over the ownership of a toy. They fight to show off, and just for the entertainment of competition, so that each dragon knows where she stands in relationship to the others of her flock, and when there is disagreement over who claims a kill or walks through a tunnel when others must give way, the way of things is known. They fight not to kill but to win, for there is no joy in killing a defeated rival – how then will they gloat? – and it is a deeply shameful thing to kill a flock-mate, which hurts all.

And they fight to avenge offenses and drive away threats real and imagined, and to protect their close-kin and their flock and themselves.

The Knotted Man is the Alpha here, and the pain of the dragon-cousins under his rule is his fault, so he should not be the Alpha here! They know that if the Alpha is defeated, he will not be in charge anymore, and then the dragons should be let go.

In a dragon-nest, this is the way it would be, and this is how _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ understand it, as they leap to the attack.

None of the Knotted Man's humans move in to help him, which is as it should be. An Alpha who cannot fight to defend his dominance is no Alpha at all.

As _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ circle and strike, struggling to get past the defense of the pretend-like paw of the Knotted Man, an expression like a fierce human smile spreads across his broad face, baring teeth. Human smiles always look more like snarls to Hiccup, unless they are careful and remember to not show their teeth, but this smile is both at once, starving and angry and full of enjoyment at the same time.

Again and again, they attack, leaping into the air and pouncing down at him, and spinning around quick as thought so that Toothless' tail cracks across his tangled fur just as Weary She was whipped for being too slow. But a blow from his striking-stick nearly catches one delicate tail-fin as Toothless draws it away, and he brings it around too quickly for Toothless to leap into the opening, keeping the black dragon and his rider at bay.

There is cruelty in the smile when a blow strikes true against Toothless' paw, crushing it between striking-stick and ship-ground. When the black dragon leaps away, setting that paw down gingerly, the Knotted Man calls out to him with mockery in his voice, taunting.

Limping a bit, Toothless summons up his flames and blasts at him, far too close to miss. But when the flash of blasting-fire clears, the Knotted Man is still there, emerging from beneath his cloak that he draped over himself like a wing.

Seeing an opportunity, Hiccup signals _now!_ with the tension in his paws, and Toothless pounces, bringing his front paws down against the cloak to tear it away and bring down the Alpha hiding behind it.

Toothless does not even notice the feeling and movement of metal beneath the cloak, because the moment his paws touch it, a terrible moan escapes him, and he backs away whimpering, ear-flaps down, blind with horror.

From the trembling running through his beloved, and that the cloak was still unscathed by dragon-fire, and from the look of it, at last, Hiccup understands, and he too cries out in shock and revulsion.

The cloak is dragon-skin – the Knotted Man is _wearing_ the dead, wearing one of their own who was butchered like prey.

And worse still, unthinkably worse, the color of the skin is like Toothless' own.

In all the world, in all their wanderings, they have never met another like Toothless, but they hope to, someday, if they wander far enough.

Shocked into insensibility, they keen, grieving, the battle abruptly nothing beneath their mourning.

Perhaps they would have huddled there forever, cowed by the abomination and weeping in their own way, but as they tremble, the Knotted Man lifts a paw and snaps it down.

A terrible blast erupts around them, reeking of the poison-breath of many two-heads cousins, and everything vanishes.

The blast – the shock of sound and scent-blindness and the sudden heat of fire – stuns Hiccup momentarily, and when he regains his senses he finds to his horror that he and Toothless have been separated. There is no heart-fire warmth and heartbeat beneath his paws, only the cold wood of the ship.

The cloud of poison-breath is too thick to see anything through, and Hiccup cannot breathe it. Coughing and staggering, he rises to his feet and moves blindly, searching for clear air. The poison-breath stings at his eyes like salt in a wound, but he refuses to close them. His ears are ringing and he cannot afford to lose another sense.

He cannot find Toothless in the fog, and Toothless cannot find him, so the dragon-man stumbles onwards until the air is clearer. It is dark now, so dark, and for a moment Hiccup wonders if he is truly blinded.

But he can see the movement of his paw as he rubs it over his eyes to clear the stinging fog from them. Blinking, he looks around and realizes that the darkness is night, the night that there should be, because all the dragons on the ship have swallowed away their fires again.

Movement stirs behind him, and Hiccup turns back to the fog, alert but confused.

There is a dark shape in the fog, coming towards him, but Hiccup is not fooled. He knows Toothless as well as he knows himself and better – he cannot see himself clearly, but he knows every scale and scar on Toothless' hide, every pace and leap and turn of the way his dragon-beloved other-half moves – and that is not Toothless at all.

The Knotted Man is hunting him, and Hiccup flees, going nowhere but away. He trusts Toothless to look after himself and find him again, and the dragon-man must do the same. They will find each other, they will!

He does not know the ship, but his eyes are adapting to the familiar darkness quickly, more quickly than the humans who are still yowling to each other and bumping into each other in the dark. When one snatches at him Hiccup turns on him, snarling, and although his slashing claws do not find their mark the swipe does scare the man away.

The man draws back and takes others with him, and in the gap they leave Hiccup leaps to the tops of many barrels all together. From there he can climb to one of the many beams and branches that stretch out over the ship, part of built things he does not recognize or understand. But there are many of them to climb and hide behind and race across.

Hiccup is a small dragon, but sometimes his size is an advantage, and now he moves from outcropping to beam to flat space quickly, small enough and light enough to climb through the forest of the ship just as he would move across high crags or the branches of real trees. In thick forests the dragons of his flock are sometimes unable to reach into trees, too high to stand to and too tight-packed to fly down towards, and he is one of the few able to climb easily.

He understands immediately the working of a ladder left against a half-built thing with many holes in it, scaling it immediately and heading ever upwards, filled with desperate ideas about looking for Toothless from the heights he prefers rather than the unnervingly flat ground of the ship. But beating behind that wanting, flopping like a fish drowning in air, is _fear_. Fear of the Knotted Man, whose voice he can hear booming out below.

Perched on the end of a beam, out of reach of humans, he pauses for a moment, trying to understand where he is in a strange and hostile world. Below, the poison-breath fog is blowing away as humans move around it and dragons cough; all around there are the many edges that Toothless thought they could hide behind, but that now could have enemies hiding behind them instead; and he cannot see Toothless anywhere.

Unable to remain silent, he calls out _where you where here-I-am distress fear worry you? you? you where you beloved-mine Toothless where here-I-am!_

No familiar dragon-voice replies, and Hiccup cringes involuntarily, torn between gliding back down to the ship-ground on his own wings to search for Toothless and the knowledge that the safest place for both of them is away and Toothless will have gone there. They both know that Toothless is the more sensible of the two of them; Toothless will have gotten away from the trap they fell into as quickly as possible.

Before he can decide, there is a terrible sound from the other end of the beam where it meets the half-built thing, and Hiccup whips around, rising to a defensive crouch and raising his claws. Raised on heights and edges, his balance does not waver for a moment, even as he prepares to leap or brace against an attack.

On the solid ground of the half-built thing, the Knotted Man is waiting, striking-stick in one paw. And he is laughing.

Hiccup shudders at the sound of it, and snarls _stop!_

The Knotted Man says something in human words, his voice dark with contempt. He is not fast and lithe the way the dragon-rider is, but to Hiccup's eyes he is inexorable, like an avalanche that buries forests and cliffs and dragons, sweeping them all away and leaving emptiness and broken things in their place.

He spins the striking-stick back and forth, and prowls forward on the beam. With his stick he reaches out, testing the space between them.

When it comes too close to him Hiccup turns a paw against it and swats it away, hissing even as he looks all around. He had forgotten the striking-stick, the way the Knotted Man uses it to give him paws that can reach a long way and make him bigger than his body, and Hiccup knows now that this is not a safe place to wait and look for Toothless.

Something scratches at the corner of his awareness, and he remembers the many arrows that were shot at them when they came here in the storm and again when they tried to flee. Why are there no arrows now?

The Knotted Man is waiting, guarding the only way that a human could escape this trap – and it is no escape at all, to walk into the predator's jaws.

 _Submit,_ the Knotted Man growls, quieter now that he is not trying to out-roar Toothless, and the eager swing of his striking-stick says clearly that if Hiccup does not surrender, he will strike the dragon-man from his perch and let him fall.

Hiccup hisses _defiance_ , and leaps – he is a dragon, and he is not afraid of the air!

His makeshift wings catch just enough air to break his fall and bring him down to the ground of the ship, with enough control that he can land on his back feet without too much of a jolt. Dropping immediately to all his paws, which makes the landing easier, he finds himself under the blank gaze of an unfamiliar dragon, whose chest is striped with old scars.

They stare at each other in silence, the dragon-feral frozen and waiting for the stranger to move. How can he trust the dragons that serve under the Knotted Man? They would not fight back when they had the chance, they turned on him and his heart's-love Toothless at the command of their monstrous human Alpha, how does he know that this one will not betray him now that _(click)-phuh_ is all alone and lost and hunted, his other half still missing?

She lowers her head just slightly, turning it to the side to keep him out of her blind spot, and looks him over. Her eye flicks from his face to his paws to his wings and back again, and he sees confusion in its depths.

Very slowly, Hiccup raises one paw and holds it out towards her, showing his claws. _This_ , he is saying. This is who and what he is.

Her nostrils flare, perhaps smelling the dragon-scent on it from Toothless, and she does not cry an alarm.

She bears him no malice, but she no longer remembers hope. She has not been commanded to hunt for the little dragon at her side, and her obedience is from habit and resignation and indifference, so she turns away, choosing not to see.

Hiccup ducks his shoulders _thank you_ , and darts away. In the brief instants of gliding flight he had looked for a better place to climb high and look for Toothless or be found by him, and now he races there, staying hidden and out of sight.

The ladder had made sense, and the thing that the humans have done to the tallest ship-tree makes sense too. They have put metal grips up and down it to make it easier to climb – in his fear, Hiccup does not even notice how much metal these humans have to use on such things – and it is the easiest thing for the dragon-man to scale them, all the way up to the bottom edge of the ship-tree's single leaf.

The Knotted Man will not be able to creep up on him here, and this is near where _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ perched when they were first looking at this ship. Toothless will find him here.

So hidden, Hiccup wraps himself in his trailing wings as much as possible and trembles, frightened beyond belief. Even now, he can barely think about anything beyond simple survival – without the security of Toothless beside him, he is half a person, fractured and unbalanced. He can fight and flee but until he knows Toothless is safe, until they are together again, he struggles to think much further than that.

He knows only that he is terrified, that this monster in their waters is beyond what _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ can fight on their own. That there should be a human Alpha who foams at the mind and understands the speaking of dragons and hurts them anyway, who puts them in chains and dulls their heart-fires to ashes, is a thing that _must not be_.

They need help and they need time to think and they need to be away from the fear that breathes even in the air of this place and they need to be together again! Their flock must know about this threat so that they know to stay far away, and perhaps the king of ice will know what to do. He is wisest of all, and Hiccup trusts the king absolutely. He will know. He will know. _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ will bring this story back to him and he will help them.

By now there is very much shouting from below, and Hiccup can hear the deep thunder-voice of the Knotted Man cutting through it, roaring as if giving orders. Even at this distance he can hear the dreadful glee in that voice, savoring the hunt.

Movement over the edge of the ship catches his eye where a moment ago there was none, not even the churning bubbles that seem to come and go, and a surge of hope bursts in the young dragon's chest. _Here_ , he whistles softly, a high thin sound that blows away on the wind. But Toothless knows his voice, Toothless will hear him.

 _You?_ a not-Toothless voice whistles back, and pairs of noses poke up out of the water besides the ship.

Hiccup whimpers in disappointment as sharp as the flare of hope as that hope dies away. Where is Toothless? The lightning-noses are friendly, so much more than the broken dragons dominated by the Knotted Man, but they are not his heart-beloved Toothless.

 _C'mon_ _c'mon c'mon_ , one of the lightning-noses beckons, pointing their noses up towards him and down at the water where the flock is circling, surfacing and diving and shifting around.

They do not speak quite the same way, but the invitation is clear, especially when another mimics the flock-sound Hiccup had identified himself by before and adds, _danger danger urgent-important hurry you go go go us go you go!_ They are uneasy at being so close to the alien, threatening ships, anxious for their cornered new-strange land-dragon friends who thought to speak to them, so much so that they followed _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ here, and eager for all of them to be elsewhere.

He does not know how to explain to them that he cannot leave without Toothless, that they will be _fine_ as soon as Toothless finds him. It is hard to say these things from so far away while trying to stay hidden. But he does not get a chance.

From below, a dragon's roar – but not, it is a human voice roaring in imitation – cuts through a sudden silence, and the Knotted Man walks to the root of the ship-tree as easily as a swatted stone finds the ground.

He looks up, smiling that dreadful snarling smile again, and Hiccup understands too vividly what it is to be prey and cornered.

The Knotted Man gestures: _down._

When Hiccup growls at him, he does not look unhappy to be defied. Instead, he beckons to his humans.

Hiccup understands as soon as those humans haul a bundle of _kkkn-ffsss_ and rope across the deck to the feet of the Knotted Man. Dread and despair choke him even before the Knotted Man sets aside his striking-stick for a blade.

He knows.

He knows.

He knows.

But when the blade slices through the _kkkn-ffsss_ Hiccup wails as if it were his own flesh so cut away, for it is his own heart buried under there, still living but so vulnerable, trapped and bound.

 _C'mon!_ the lightning-noses whistle, offering to take him home and away from here, to get help, to warn his family, to protect his flock by returning to them to warn them, just as he would tell them about traps set under the snow.

But that would mean leaving Toothless alone, allowing humans to separate them, and he cannot leave Toothless. Not like this. Not scared, and helpless, and threatened. Not in the power of a monster who wears the skin of the dead, who killed one _like them_ , one they will never get to fly and find ever again.

He could never.

He is not so strong, to turn his back and flee, to bear such a loss. It would destroy him. He would shatter like ice.

Below, the Knotted Man slams the knife into the wood of the ship by Toothless' wide eyes, and holds the black dragon there with one heavy foot as Toothless struggles uselessly. There are so many tangle-nets wrapped around him that it would take all night to cut them away; every hateful servant of the Knotted Man must have hunted _Tt-th-ss_ while their Alpha hunted _(click)-phuh_.

 _Down!_ the Knotted Man gestures, roaring. _Submit! Now!_

And he picks up the blade again, wrenching it from the gash it made so easily in the wood, and places it against Toothless' throat.

Hiccup is loyal to his dragon-family and he would give anything to protect them. But not this.

So he surrenders, to save Toothless' life – to save both their lives, he could not survive the loss of his heart. He climbs down from the useless refuge of the ship-tree with all his signals saying _submission_. Frustration and grief and fear break into wherever the ocean in him hides, setting free still-unfamiliar weeping.

On the deck, he crouches at his beloved's side at the feet of the Knotted Man. He makes himself small in defeat, head bowed and shoulders hunched, broken.

The pulse in Toothless' throat is the only thing he can see, fixed on it as if it might stop if he looks away, pressed close against it to protect that vulnerable throat with his own small body, crooning to Toothless the softest possible sounds of the soul-deep love they share.

If this is the ending of them, there are no sounds more important to make.

Somewhere far away, he hears the laughter of the monstrous Alpha, but it is nothing beside the desperate whimpers of his other half. And he registers nothing of the steps from feet he is blind to, or the crack of a sword hilt across his skull.

* * *

He wakes alone, in pain, in darkness, and in a cage.

* * *

 _To be continued._

 _Please don't scream at me._


	7. Chapter 7

_**Stormfall,**_ **Part Seven**

Astrid decides for sure that this was a bad idea the second time Eret threatens to throw Snotlout overboard and the third time Snotlout shouts back, "Oh yeah? Oh _yeah?_ Why don't you try it, then?"

She'd been pretty sure when the twins decided that pulling ropes to move the sails about was boring, and they should tie the ropes to their _feet_ instead and run with them. They must glue their helmets to their heads or something, otherwise it would have been raining helmets in between a strong gust catching the sails and Ruffnut and Tuffnut swinging around in the air by their ankles like entirely bizarre fruits, laughing wildly the whole time.

The first clue had probably been that Fearsome had decided that he was going to occupy the prow of the ship and that no one else was allowed up there ever, and had come very close to setting himself and the whole ship on fire to make that point before Astrid had yelled at Snotlout to either get his dragon under control or go home.

They're moving, and the ship is not on fire, and Eret seems to know which way he's going, but that's all she can say for this expedition so far.

"All right, that's enough," she declares as the swinging twins spin past over her head again. "Everyone, come over here and help me get these idiots down."

"Hey," Eret complains from where he's standing on one of the railings trying to see over Fearsome, holding on one of the remaining ropes for balance, "I get that you're in command of this mission, but this is my ship. I give the orders about sailing her."

Astrid turns on him, glaring. "And when it comes to my people, I'm in charge. Those ropes looked important. Now, are you going to help me get them down, or not?"

"Can we leave Ruffnut up there, at least?" Eret drops his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

They get it sorted out before the ship gets blown too far off course, at least according to Eret. The twins are taken off anything to do with ropes and assigned to lookout duty instead, and the sail lines are handed over to the much heavier Barf and Belch, who are well-suited to tasks not more complicated than holding ropes in their mouths while sitting still.

"Attack!" Tuffnut screams a bit later, waving his arms and throwing punches in all directions. One fist barely misses Fishlegs, who stumbles backward with a yelp. "Look look look! Out there! The dragon army found us! Here they come!"

The shapes in the distance are small, so they've got a little time to get organized. "Weapons, everyone!" Astrid calls, and the others scramble for their favorites.

"How'd they find –" _us_ , Astrid doesn't get to say before she's swarmed by shrieking little dragons.

"Augh!" she yells. "Terrors! Oh, gods, what are you all _doing_ here!"

Not far away big dragons, then. Nearby small ones. Easy mistake.

The cloud of Terrible Terrors explodes over the ship like one of those awful stink bombs the twins invented two years ago, except happier. In moments they're hanging from the sails, besieging the bigger dragons, chasing each other over and across the railings, mobbing young Vikings, falling into the open hatch with surprised screeches, poking their noses into bundles and crates…

"Go home!" Astrid shouts at the nearest one. "Get lost!"

It's mildly amusing to see Eret trying to use Stormfly as a shield, holding his arms over his head and staring, while everywhere else the Berkians are rolling their eyes and doing the only thing anyone can do in response to happy Terrors, which is to hold still and let them tire themselves out. Maybe only on Berk are Terror storms an everyday thing.

"Okay, very funny, guys," says Astrid to the flock as a whole once they've calmed down, sitting their silly selves down and staring around with intense interest at the ship like it's a new great game. "You found us. Now you hide, and we'll find you. Which is to say, go home!"

But Terrors like to be in the middle of everything, and ever since people stopped hunting them like vermin they've grown so confident that even shouting at them doesn't do anything. So the louder Astrid, or anyone else shouts at them – Snotlout is doing just that, yelling at several that they should stay away from Fearsome because he'll eat them in a bite, like _that!_ and Fearsome's saving his strength to fight armies, not teeny dumb flying lizard pests – the more they stare and smile.

"What are those little things even for, anyway?" Eret asks, trying to reclaim his dignity by pretending he never hid from tiny dragons. "I don't get why you put up with them."

"Hey," Tuffnut jumps in, "they're terrifying! They sneak up behind you in the dark, and then they attack! And then, once you're down, they'll eat your _nose!_ One nearly bit mine off when I was a kid. See, there's a scar, see?"

As Eret is conveniently in a corner anyway, it's easy for Tuffnut to trap him against the bulkhead and stick his nose in Eret's face. "Huh? Huh? Right? See?"

"Wasn't that the year we locked ourselves out of the house and no one would let us back in?" Ruffnut chips in.

"Yeah! And we tried to climb in the window except we'd booby-trapped the window against trolls and Snotlout –"

Ruffnut nods seriously. "Snotlout is worse."

"Hey! I am not! Oh, or am I coming on too strong, princess? I get it. There's just too much Snotlout for you. I can't help it."

Tuffnut rattles on, oblivious to his sister recruiting a knot of Terrors to attack Snotlout. "– so then the house was full of sand and we couldn't get in anyway?"

Eret, still cornered, is looking distinctly trapped.

With the Terrors mobbing Snotlout, Ruffnut leaps back into the conversation. "Heh. Yeah! We were so sunburned and wrinkly by the time that Terror tried to eat your nose, it couldn't even get its teeth into you! So there's no scar, stupid."

Astrid remembers that summer. It might have been a better idea to lock the twins _in_ their house rather than _out_ , preferably under all that sand. Free-range twins are an even dumber idea than free-range sheep, and a far worse idea than free-range dragons. The two of them had gone nocturnal and run around after dark pretending to be ghosts, or something, for most of the summer, and no one had gotten any sleep.

Staring at his nose with an intensely cross-eyed expression, Tuffnut concedes, "Aww…"

"Would you like one?" his sister offers generously.

"Yeah!"

"Okay! Hold still!"

Eret manages to escape in the ensuing scuffle, looking harassed. Astrid must look like the last refuge of sanity, because he comes over to her.

"Mostly they're pets," she continues the discussion as if no interruption had taken place. On Berk, you learn to stick to your topic no matter what else is going on, otherwise you'd never finish a conversation. "You know, having something come and live with you that's friendly, without trying to sell it to some madman?"

"Oh, how adorable," Eret deadpans. "Where I come from, we don't have the luxury to put up with things that aren't useful."

"They're useful!" protests Fishlegs, stepping around Gronkles and Terrors and Stormfly's tail to join them, his _Book of Dragons_ copy tucked firmly under his arm. He's taken to wearing a special pouch on his belt to carry it and his writing tools, since he's always making notes in it. He says he's going to produce a brand new edition, much more comprehensive and accurate than the old one.

Since the old one failed to mention things like, "Oh, by the way, dragons are totally trainable," Astrid supports this project of his.

He also says he's going to get Hiccup to illustrate it, but Astrid isn't sure how he plans to make that happen. Since Fishlegs will back away apologizing profusely and spend the rest of the week on the edge of tears if Hiccup so much as hisses at him (Astrid is sure of this; she was the one who finally told him to suck it up and get over it), she isn't particularly worried about that detail. She'll believe it when she sees it. Otherwise it sounds like a great idea. …as Fishlegs' ideas go.

"Terrible Terrors, while small and easily distracted," Fishlegs begins, going into lecture mode, "have a strong homing instinct and a remarkable sense of loyalty. So I trained a bunch of them to be messengers. You know, Astrid, we probably should have brought them with us anyway, so we can send messages back to Berk if we need to."

"Hmmm…that's not a bad idea," Astrid agrees with him. Since they've been overrun by Terrors anyway, she may as well act like she's in control of the situation.

"You know," she adds to Eret, "just in case you decide to go back on your word and drop us in it. If you do, by the way, I'm going to have Stormfly drop _you._ On your head."

Eret grins at her, a definite hard edge in his eyes. "You don't pull punches, do you? I think we'll get along fine."

"Don't count on it," Astrid assures him. "Hey, everyone, what kind of messages do you think we might have to send home?"

At least some of their suggestions are entertaining, and Astrid sets Fishlegs to being the ship's scribe, copying down likely events – "No good winds. Becalmed," Eret suggests – and good news – "Hiccup and Toothless showed up!" Fishlegs puts in his own vote early – and disasters – "Attacked by dragon army, ship's on fire," Snotlout predicts, far too cheerfully.

"Sighted the fleet," Astrid suggests, more reasonably. "Coming home. Set up a base camp to watch the fleet from. Still no news – write several of those, Fishlegs."

"Everyone bitten by Lycanwings, full moon rising!" Ruffnut cheers. "Yeah! That army won't know what hit it!"

After that, it gets out of hand.

"Giant whirlpool," Eret says, and at first Astrid can't tell if he's joking or not. And then he confirms it. "There's one in these waters, you know. Moves around. Eats ships."

"No…" Tuffnut's eyes go wide. "Really? Awesome!"

"Oh yeah. We almost got caught in it once, on this very ship."

Astrid does not believe the resulting story, which involves not only a travelling malevolent maelstrom but a pod of Scauldrons, two pirate ships, and a ghost. But the twins are hooked, gaping like fish and gasping at each twist, and while Snotlout says "Nuh uh!" every few minutes while pretending not to listen, he backs off almost instantly when Eret shrugs and offers to stop telling the story entirely, because clearly they survived, so the rest of it can't be that interesting…

She almost hates to remind them that this is a reconnaissance mission, not a summer outing, but when Eret finally wraps up his story – at some point a treasure hunt for a magic spyglass had gotten involved – Astrid shoos the twins into the air aboard Barf and Belch to scout out the area. If they're going in circles, she wants to know now.

She just doesn't trust Eret. He may be making nice at the moment, being friendly and cooperating, but there's a certain wariness in the way he looks at her people, and she isn't sure that the deal he struck with Stoick is going to hold.

"Hey, give those back!" the man shouts as she thinks this, finally noticing that Fishlegs has gotten into the chest with the maps. "Those are secrets! Do you have any idea how long it took us to put those maps together?"

"At least a hundred years," Fishlegs says brightly. "The ink for this island that you've scratched out recently looks about that old. It sunk a few years ago, so your map's right about that."

Eret blinks, taken aback.

"I managed to get Bucket and Mulch to take me out that way on one of their fishing trips. I think Whispering Deaths ate it to pieces. Have you ever encountered a Whispering Death?"

And the book comes out again.

Astrid uses the brief moments of peace to check on the dragons that have accompanied them on this mad voyage. Already there are many fewer Terrors. Chasing down the ship may have been a good game at first, but for all Fishlegs insists that they can be taught tricks, they lose interest in things so easily.

"Hey, girl," she greets Stormfly, sitting down on the deck at the Nadder's side. "How's things? These little pests not bothering you?" The Terror creeping up on her boot, stopping every few steps to throw itself to the ground and tremble with excitement, pays no attention to her smirk. "How about the big pests?"

The big pests, specifically Snotlout and Fearsome, seem to have set up camp on the other end of the ship entirely. Snotlout may claim that they're staking out the prow of the ship because they want to be the first to see the enemy, but Astrid suspects that he just can't get Fearsome to move for anything less than the big Nightmare getting hungry.

Fishlegs' Gronkle pair, which after much agonizing he narrowed down to Minnow and Dark Deep, seem perfectly content to bumble around in the perhaps overfull hold, occasionally hovering out of the open hatch to smother their human friend in slobbery licking kisses until he laughs and pets them. Eret has been saying, off and on, that leaving the hatch open like that is asking for trouble, that it's going to slam down on someone's foot and then where will they be, but nothing like that has happened so far.

Barf and Belch, for now flying around in increasingly erratic circles with the twins, have proven to be almost as easily entertained as their riders, and about as unlikely to take a hint, but Astrid had taken over part of their training herself so that the Zippleback would at least learn commands like "No!" and "Drop it!" They've spent most of the day trying to look off opposite sides of the ship, straining to pull away from each other and not quite understanding that they're going to have to agree on a direction or go nowhere.

Stormfly rustles _strrrrTT!_ and Astrid laughs, marveling still that the Nadder should have learned that trick.

"Whoa," says Eret.

"Oh, it's you," Astrid sighs. "What is it now?"

"Did that Nadder just say your name?"

She can be defensive around Eret or she can be proud of her Stormfly, and Astrid is very proud of her Stormfly. "Yes, she did."

"How'd you teach her to do that?"

"I didn't. Hiccup did. At least, I think he did. She probably picked it up from him, anyway." Eret looks even more confused, so Astrid explains, "That's almost how he says my name, when he's talking to me."

For a while she thinks she's gotten rid of him while he huddles over a lodestone and recruits Fishlegs to adjust the sails accordingly. He endears himself to Snotlout by bringing up to the prow a snack substantial enough to feed this mythical dragon army they're going looking for, or both of them and Fearsome. It's not enough to feed three people and Fearsome and a Gronkle, but Fishlegs brings along seconds and a satchel of rocks when he joins them at the prow with Dark Deep at his heels.

When the twins land and run off to demand to get in on this meal – "Didn't see anything, your turn next, okay?" Ruffnut tosses off as an afterthought as she runs past Astrid – he tells them another story, this one about a ship crewed by skeletons that can only be seen when it's snowing, and puts up with Ruffnut practically climbing into his lap with contrived fear, without threatening to throw her overboard even once.

Astrid decides it really is her turn. "Come on, Stormfly, let's go flying," she suggests, and the Nadder scrambles to her feet eagerly, shaking off the pair of Terrors sprawled across her back, the little dragons sleeping with gusto.

They've been learning how to fly together for almost a year now, scarred but resilient Nadder and Viking chieftain-in-training, and still Astrid's breath catches in her throat the moment they take off into the air. Just for a moment, her stomach and her lungs are still on board ship while the rest of her is in the sky, on dragonback, and Astrid is lighter than air.

How, she wonders as they soar, Stormfly catching the wind that's sending Eret's ship skidding across the waves and making it her own, could anyone begrudge someone else this sort of freedom?

Stoick believes, and Eret seems to, as well, that this Drago Bludvist they're searching for will consider Berk his enemy because they're living in peace with dragons. Nothing about that makes sense to Astrid. What sort of madman must he be, if that makes sense to him?

This sort of wonder – the way Stormfly has chosen to trust Astrid even though Astrid hurt her in the past, the trust Astrid places in her every time she sits astride the Nadder's back and says "Up!", that a dragon able to bite her arm off at the shoulder instead takes food directly and neatly from her hand, that Astrid had built Stormfly a lean-to of her own next to the house but felt bad about that and invited her in and never once regretted it, that they are friends – it's not diminished by being shared.

 _You have to try that_ , Astrid had told everyone she could find, after the first couple of times she'd been up in the air. _That was the most amazing and terrifying and wonderful and exciting and honestly insane thing I've ever done, I want to do it again. But first I need to sit down._

It's impossible to want trouble, up here.

She looks for it anyway, just in case, because no one on shipboard is paying attention. So she'll be responsible for them just as she would back on Berk. She'll protect her people because that's what she does.

But there's a clear open sky in all directions, with only the occasional thin cloud that melts away as Stormfly dives through it, leaving tiny dewdrops on Astrid's braid and the fur lining of her hood. Only the flickering of fish breaks the trackless sea below, and she clings to Stormfly's saddle, giggling because no one can hear her, as the Nadder dips and dives and strikes at her prey. With her dragon sated, Astrid is content to fly for a while above the nameless ship, at peace and refreshed by the open air.

At times like this, as she closes her eyes and lets herself fall into the raw sensations of flying, she almost understands why Hiccup prefers to be a dragon. To be a dragon is to be _free_.

Distantly, she hears from below a cry of "Hey Astrid!" and she opens her eyes again with a resigned sigh.

Reality.

"What is it?" she asks as Stormfly lands obligingly on the deck again, one foot still in the air to avoid stepping on a rudely awakened Terror, which darts away complaining loudly.

"Can we hang some of these ropes off the back of the ship and have it pull us?" Ruffnut says brightly.

"We'll need the ship to go a lot faster, if we're going to have enough speed to stay on top of the water, though," Tuffnut muses. "The surface tension, you know. It's just not high enough. Hey, Eret, how do we make the ship go faster?"

"You could get out and push."

"Wait, wait, wait," Astrid sighs. "No, I don't think any ship goes that fast. Unless you've learned to walk on water, guys, you'll just sink."

Fishlegs opens his mouth, probably to say something about dragons capable of walking on water. Astrid makes a _don't help_ face at him, and he closes it again.

"Awwww…" the twins moan with matching expressions of deep disappointment.

"Why do you want to get wet? What's wrong with the ship? And who's going to rescue Tuffnut when he sinks? When are you going to learn to swim, Tuffnut? That's just stupid, even for you." Astrid fights the urge to put her head in her hands as if the answer to _why are the twins so weird?_ might be written there. "Oh, who am I kidding? You're going to try it anyway. …Look, if you're really keen on having something pull you through the water, why don't you use Barf and Belch?"

The twins look at each other, jaws dropping. "Yeah!" they scream in unison, and run off to recruit their dragon/s.

"This I gotta see," grins Snotlout, and runs after them.

Astrid groans. "Stormfly, ready. Rescue," she commands, and the Nadder rustles her wings in anticipation.

"I'm impressed." Eret folds his arms and nods. "I was wondering how you ended up sort of in charge around here. Stoick's apprentice, right?"

"Something like that."

"I figured you were kind of young and a girl to be in charge, but you don't do half bad. How'd you end up the chief's lieutenant?"

She resists the temptation to punch him; she's heard the same _but you're a girl!_ thing from just about everyone. Snotlout, as a kid, endlessly. The former Berserker chief Oswald, who had blinked at her and smiled tentatively as if waiting for the punchline to the joke. Most of the older residents of Berk, at one time or another. Every single traveling trader who'd patted her on the head and called her _little miss_ ; ultimately she'd threatened to break the wrist of the next person who did that, and they hadn't believed her.

Stoick had listened patiently, and answered the ensuing complaint with, "She warned you. Listen next time."

"Usually it runs in the family," she says instead, "but the chief lost his son when he was just a baby."

"To dragons."

"Yeah. That'd be Hiccup. But no one knew that until recently." And in some ways, Astrid thinks but does not say, Stoick has still lost his son. That human boy who was kidnapped is never coming back the way Stoick wants him to.

Instead she continues, "Stoick decided it might be better if someone was trained to it, rather than born. He saw that I could be good at it. He taught me. Also," she adds for good measure, "what exactly does me being a girl have to do with anything? Think carefully about your answer. I'm good at what I do."

The trapper puts his hands up defensively, tries for an appealing smile, and comes out with only a slightly less annoying grin. "Yeah, I can see that. I'm not careful, you'll have this ship out from under me and my whole operation too."

"What? Not a chance," Astrid laughs incredulously. "You don't understand, do you? Once you've befriended a dragon, it changes everything. It changed me. I could never do what you do. I'd see Stormfly in every dragon I met, and I could never put her in a cage. She's my friend."

Eret looks uncomfortable, glancing over at the blue-dappled dragon. She's still alert, watching the growing chaos out in the water off to the side of the ship, but no genuine scream of distress has triggered the "rescue" trick Astrid taught her in advance of this year's regatta – just in case, just in time, and just right, Astrid would like to point out.

"And I wouldn't work for someone I hated," she adds. "Why do you?"

Eret admits, perhaps a bit reluctantly, "Sometimes I don't know."

A great splashing and flailing heralds the return of Barf and Belch, airlifting the drenched twins onto the deck of the ship. They splash down in their brand-new saltwater puddle and start trying to untangle themselves from the ropes, but they're laughing wildly.

"Lids!" Tuffnut declares in between what Astrid can only describe as giggles. "We need barrel lids to stand on! And straps, like riding straps, but for feet!"

* * *

They manage to survive a whole night on board without killing each other, although there were a few close calls. At one point Astrid had actually caught Ruffnut by one greasy braid, hauled her in close, and hissed, "Cut it out!"

"What?" Ruffnut had tried to deflect, unconvincingly.

"You know _what_. Pitting Snotlout and Eret against each other. It's not clever. It's not funny. Play later, okay?"

Ruffnut pouted. "Spoilsport."

"Look, once we're safe home you can get them to kill each other all you want. In fact, let me know when you do so I can watch. But until then, behave! I know you can."

Before darkness had really fallen, Fishlegs had put together a brief report on a scrap of paper and cajoled a Terror into taking it back to Berk. He seemed pretty convinced that the message would actually reach its destination; for herself, Astrid hadn't been so sure.

"Well, he hasn't come back," Fishlegs says now, offering this up as proof that the effort hadn't been completely in vain. "Terrors are pretty territorial, so he probably went straight home. Want me to send another one, just in case?"

"No," Astrid decides, "not until we actually have something to report, or some kind of plan. Speaking of which, it's time I got some straightforward answers. Eret!"

She tracks him down in the cargo hold, inspecting the repairs that Berk's shipbuilders had made back at home. He's rapping his knuckles against the new wood, testing the flow of one piece into the original as if looking for cracks.

To Astrid's surprise, she can see definite fondness in the way he lays his hand against the bulkhead. He's been reluctant to have much to do with Stormfly, or Barf and Belch, or Minnow and Dark Deep, and she can't really blame him for staying out of reach of Fearsome. But the impression Astrid has gotten – from every tiny step he's taken away from the dragons and the way he keeps his hands close to his body when they're around, to the way he won't quite look at them – takes a significant hit from the affection he bestows on his ship.

"Everything still one piece down here?" she asks, allowing him the benefit of the doubt.

A bit of a wry grin twists his face as he looks up at her. She climbs down into the hold to join him, staying in the pool of sunlight from the open hatch and bracing herself against the ladder as the ship rolls all around her, cargo and ballast shifting – but not too far. "Your people do pretty good work, actually. Shame it's going to go to waste."

"Hey, you don't know that. As long as you get us close enough to this fleet to get a look at it, and get us away safely, she'll be fine, and you and your crew as well. We'll keep our part of the deal, as long as you do."

"Of this, I have no doubt. Did you want something?"

She can feel the mood in the air change the moment she says, "Yes. So, where are we going?"

Eret hesitates for an uncertain moment. "Look, are you sure about this? What exactly do you hope to get out of it? Take it from me, chieftain girl. I said I'd help you, so here it is: the best thing you can do about Drago Bludvist is stay away. Believe me, I know. If I hadn't –" He breaks off. "Never mind."

"Of course I'm sure. I can't fight an enemy I don't know anything about."

"You can't fight this enemy at all," he fires back. "You really don't understand, do you?"

"And that's why I'm here. To understand."

Eret rolls his eyes visibly, and Astrid feels her temper rising. How can he be so blind to what she's trying to do here?

"Why have you just given up?" she demands suddenly. "It's obvious how much you hate this Drago person. He's not your friend. Why are you so loyal to someone you don't like?"

He retorts, "I don't have to like him. I just have to stay out of his way. Particularly," he adds with an entirely humorless laugh, "if he finds out I'm freelancing for you lot. Drago doesn't tolerate disloyalty, or anything he thinks might be even slightly disloyal. Failure, for one thing. Conspiring with his enemies."

"What have we done to him anyway?" interrupts Astrid, all the sympathy she'd felt for a moment boiling away.

"Everyone's his enemy. If he doesn't control you, you're a threat, and if you threaten him, he'll destroy you. What he has he keeps, and he never lets it go."

"And he has you," Astrid spits, disgusted.

He glares at her sullenly. "I go where the work is."

"Oh, I see." It's her turn to roll her eyes. "So it's all about the silver, is it? Nothing to do with you being scared of him?"

"It's about survival. I would have thought you Berkians would understand that."

Her people understand survival better than anyone else, Astrid thinks. But her people never broke under the odds against them. They never gave up, they always had hope. And when a chance to gain some advantage – however unlikely, however temporary – came their way, they always took it, snatching at and chasing after possibilities to turn the tide. So many failures, so many setbacks, until finally something came through for them. It wasn't anything anyone could have anticipated, but they got there in the end because they kept going.

"If we'd resigned themselves to dragon raids the way you've resigned yourself to being a slave," snarls Astrid, "we'd still be trapped and suffering. We'd be farming and fishing to feed _them_ rather than ourselves, going hungry so we could offer up tributes and hope they went away again. That's not living."

She has to stop and bite down on her tongue before she says something she'll regret. The closer air of the hold, thick with the smell of new tar, is overpowering in the heat she imagines she must be giving off like a fuming dragon. It's always tempting to let her temper control her rather than the other way round.

But then she'd be the sort of tyrant Dagur is, storming around demanding that everyone else live up to her standards, standards that even Astrid knows she sets too high even for herself, and punishing people for failing to reach them.

It's all right for her to set herself a bar she can't reach, because in stretching for it she'll get a little further than she would if she hadn't tried. But it's not fair for her to impose that on anyone else. She can only make herself the best leader she can, and trust others to challenge themselves.

It means putting up with people who ask the same inane questions over and over again, even after they've gotten the same answer every time, and holding her tongue during impromptu clan meetings when someone is demanding something that simply can't be done on the basis of a rumor Astrid had thought she'd tracked down and squashed long before. It means admitting that not everyone is going to look at the world the same way she does, and working around the holdouts who just don't want to play along.

When the dragons came to Berk to stay, there were people who simply refused to accept the new way of things. Astrid had given up arguing with Mildew, for example, and instead placated dragons he'd yelled at or chased after with his walking-staff until they learned the difference between people who were willing to try and people who didn't want any of it. Mildew had refused to move, but the world had gone around him. She has to have patience, and acknowledge that she can't pull people out of holes they don't want help out of.

She can only reach out a hand and hope that they'll decide to take it.

"Look," Astrid cuts Eret off as he draws in breath to snap something back, "I just… that wasn't what I came down here to say. I came to ask for your help so we can all get back to Berk safely. Maybe I don't know what I'm up against, but I'm right too – I want to find out. You think I'm taking too many risks, asking for trouble, and I think you're not taking enough. That's about the shape of it, right? So…truce, for now?"

She's not backing down at all, she's just shutting down an argument. Most people, Astrid has noticed, don't think of this.

Eret looks nonplussed. "You're very strange," he says finally.

"Yes, I'm from Berk."

That makes him laugh, at least.

"Let me try that again," offers Astrid. "How do you suggest we get close enough to see this fleet of Drago's without his warriors seeing us? We don't even have to be that close, actually. My dragon-riders –" Astrid could get used to that. "– can fly the rest of the way, follow them from the air."

"Army," Eret volunteers absentmindedly, caught in some thought. "The word you want is army."

"Fine, army, then," she repeats cooperatively. But the word doesn't mean much to her. No one wages a land war in the Archipelago, for obvious reasons. Wars are fought in sudden raids on towns and then making a break for it, or attacks on each other's trading ships and fishermen, for the most part. No one has a standing army. Who then would be left to get in the crops? Who would chase dragons away from the sheepfold and keep children out of the well? "Where can we find them?"

He hesitates only for a moment. "After you," he invites, gesturing her towards the upper deck. "Do you think Fishlegs will give my maps back for a few minutes?"

Those same few minutes later, they're out of the tar-heavy surrounds of the hold and out in the cool clear ocean air. Astrid breathes it in with relief, welcoming the change.

"All right," Eret tells his audience, which includes the ever-fascinated Barf and Belch craning their necks over everyone and a Terrible Terror winding itself around Astrid's neck like a purring collar. "If you're so determined to poke your noses into Drago's business, I can get you there."

He doesn't bother to refer to the maps at all, or perhaps he's just worried that they'll blow away in the wind, which is skipping around like a small girl with a length of thin cord. "I know where we were due to meet with the main body of the fleet. There's a field of icebergs we were using as a marker. We've been making good time, so if the wind holds, I can find them from there. The storm the other day probably slowed them down a bit. If I'm lucky, they're going to be even later than I am. If you're willing to put up with the cold for a few days, you could set up a base in the ice fields and scout from there."

Astrid thinks about his plan. She doesn't like how much trust she's having to place in him, but one thing she's sure of from the way he's been talking – if they get caught, he's in much more trouble than they are.

"Yeah, okay," she agrees. "Take us there. Fishlegs, can you send another Terror home? Let them know we've got a plan. I'm sure there was cold-weather gear packed somewhere on board, probably down in the hold – Ruffnut, Tuffnut, why don't you go look through what we've got and dig it out? If there's anything else interesting Gobber might have smuggled on board while I wasn't looking, don't pull any levers. I mean it!" she adds hurriedly as they grin at each other.

Moving on, and hoping she's worried about nothing when it comes to what else the twins might turn up, she turns to Snotlout, who is, unexpectedly, waiting for orders. "We're going to be flying out and scouting an army with dragons in it," she draws him in. "If they follow us back, we might have to defend wherever we're camped. Any ideas?"

Snotlout has many ideas. Some of them are actually even reasonable. Sorting through them keeps her busy, along with intervening when Tuffnut manages to trap his sister in a barrel, and making sure the dragons have been fed because, away from familiar waters and with their Viking friends clearly agitated, they're reluctant to go very far away from the ship to hunt.

So if Eret watches the Terrible Terror fly away, message firmly tied to its leg, she doesn't pay it any mind.

* * *

If nothing else, the icebergs are beautiful, even if everyone on board has bundled themselves up into the cold-weather gear the twins eventually found once they admitted there wasn't enough room down in the hold for a barrel race. Snotlout is doing his best to pretend to be unaffected, but is reluctant to go very far from Fearsome, so the only person who seems undisturbed by the cold is Eret. The dragon trapper keeps the ship tacking through the ice erratically, catching the winds that howl across the peaks and high flats before diving down into the canyons between the bergs. It means the ship moves in quick lunges in between periods of idle coasting and there's always a few moments of flailing for balance when the wind deals her another blow.

Astrid spends far too long leaning over the side of the ship, looking down into the water, hoping no one can see her mouth hanging open. Underwater, the ice is glowing. She's never seen anything like it.

It takes a cloud drifting in front of the sun and, because one cloud feels lonely, growing steadily into a thick bank of them, before she figures out that it's the sunlight shining through all the ice, not just the parts of it above water. It's still amazing. There's nothing like this anywhere near Berk.

At heart, Astrid is a bit of a homebody. She's happiest when she's secure on familiar ground, surrounded by people she understands, with a clear job to do. She likes to know that she's safe, that her people are safe, that tomorrow will make at least as much sense as today, if not more, and that they're prepared for whatever the ocean throws at them, whether that's the ships of a rival tribe or strange weather or a good run of fish. But she can't regret the twists in fate's weavings that brought her to this point, with ice glowing blue all around.

"Did you know some dragons can even survive being frozen in ice?" Fishlegs asks her brightly, and she doesn't even have the heart to snap at him for disturbing her. He sounds almost as happy as she feels at the moment. "The chances of us finding a Skrill here are miniscule, but in between scouting for the fleet we're looking for, do you think I could explore the ice field as well? Oh, do you think there might be Snow Wraiths? They're supposed to live on glaciers and ice floes, but that's about the only thing I do have on them for the _Book of Dragons_. I'd love to see one in its natural habitat. But not too close up, though."

"Sure," Astrid says generously. "Why not?"

Another gust of frozen air catches the ship's sails, and Eret leans on the tiller to send them dodging around the peak suddenly looming far too close. Even from the deck, Astrid can hear him swearing as something scrapes against the keel, but there is no final crunch of the hull being torn open, and they slide past the mountain of ice unharmed.

The waters beyond are open, but not empty.

As far as the eye can see, it feels like, dark ships ride at anchor, no more than a bowshot of distance between them. The clear water of the ice maze gives way to darker waters, fouled by the runoff from the ships' armored sides and more human debris that bobs in the water beside them. The fickle wind that fills the twin sails of Eret's much smaller ship leaves those sails limp and empty and darts away, continuing on over the fleet and blowing whatever smells they give off in the other direction entirely.

If the ice had glowed with reflected sunlight, these ships seem to absorb it, the marks of hard weathering on every handbreadth of them. The adversities that they have endured are marked into their hulls, deep scoring across darkened wood and black iron telling the tales of fierce battles as eloquently as any saga. Scraps of old, torn sails still fly from their masts alongside fresher canvases, furled now against the wind from the ice, and there are burn marks running up and down those masts, tracing out the patterns of lightning-strikes as clearly as fresh paint on limestone.

Even the closest ones are bigger than any vessel back on Berk, and further away there are ones that are even larger, with the largest of all in the center seemingly as big as the Great Hall of Berk, if the Great Hall could have been set afloat ironclad and mounted with masts.

Ships back in the Archipelago are identified more by the banners they fly and the insignia they wear than by any great variation in design, since they're such ready spoils of war, but Astrid doesn't need to know any symbols to know that this is the war fleet of Drago Bludvist, arrived at Eret's rendezvous point early.

When she tears her eyes away from the sight, understanding better now what Eret had been trying to tell her, what Stoick had anticipated attack by, what the chief had feared his wild son was flying straight towards, she sees the same expressions on the faces of the other dragon riders that must be on her own. Even the dragons are staring, taken aback by the sight.

Any orders she could give catch in her throat, reluctant to raise her voice and call out commands lest her voice carry and draw the attention of the war fleet. Maybe, she hopes, maybe they can still back away slowly, maybe they haven't yet been seen.

All those hopes are dashed in an instant with a piercing whistle, loud and shrill enough to strip paint off walls, from the man at the tiller.

"You!" Astrid screams in rage, whipping around, all pretense of stealth lost. "You two-faced streak of _slime!_ "

Eret glares back at her unapologetically, not lowering his fingers from his lips, ready to signal again. But already there are eyes turned towards them, flashes of faces visible within hoods and helmets and armor in exotic colors and patterns and shapes, and other cries have been taken up as word spreads.

"Sorry," he says.

"I knew I hated you!" Snotlout shouts at him, storming away from his post at the nose of the ship and drawing his favorite giant sword. Across the sound of Ruffnut whining, "Awwww!" in disappointment, he challenges, "Traitor! You'll regret that!"

As much as she'd like to see him go after Eret, Astrid catches his wrist as he goes past and pulls him to a stop.

"Hey, lemme go!" he snarls.

"Bigger problems," Astrid matches his snarl. "Look!"

Everyone, not just Snotlout, looks.

Those people visible behind the rails of the nearest ships have scattered and been replaced by archers, and an unnerving number of bows are being drawn and aimed at the dragon riders. Thinking about how she would react, Astrid looks for the small rowboats used back home, to bring warriors from ships moored offshore to land.

When she sees those boats, her jaw nearly drops all over again.

The boats are _flying_ , borne aloft by heavy-set dragons in carrying harnesses, three of them flying in formation to each craft. Two keep the prow aloft, flying one to each side to leave the field of fire clear for the men on board, and one bears the weight of the stern.

They're not quick to get in the air – having sighted one, Astrid is baffled to think that there might be more of them, but something so fiendishly creative has to have been done again – but the shock value of seeing a boat fly is probably worth almost as much as its value as an attack vector. Certainly her people are gaping rather than responding, and Astrid doesn't exempt herself from that particular weakness.

Peeping in distress, the remaining Terrible Terrors make a break for it, disappearing into the air and back into the ice maze like a shower of sparks from a fire someone has thrown a fresh log onto, fading from sight almost as quickly.

"Snap out of it!" she yells, and, cursing to herself, says something she never thought she'd have to say again. " _Dragons incoming!_ "

That, at least, they know how to handle. That, they've trained for, fought for, bled for.

It's been a year since there were any dragon raids on Berk, but for years before that, this was their lives. Even before any of them were old enough to fight alongside parents and neighbors and friends, they knew how to defend themselves and escape if a dragon broke through their defenses and tried to take a child rather than a sheep. Stoick had been adamant about that.

So it's with the sick sinking feeling of familiarity that Astrid finds herself with her axe in her hands again, braced and ready against a dragon unburdened by those flying boats, which descends on the ship. It's not flaming yet, and she doesn't know where exactly where it's going. At least dragons raiding for food were easy to predict at first: you went for whatever supplies had been left out or not hidden well enough and waited for some flying lizard or another to make an attempt at it. As the ever-more-frequent raids wore on, attacks and defenses inevitably devolved into grudge matches, dragons taking out their frustration on Vikings and Vikings pursuing dragons in anger.

But the one Astrid targets is only one of many, with others following it towards the intruding ship. As it lands on the deck, she runs at it anyway, swinging her axe to drive it away.

The axe strikes home and shudders in her hands, shocking them into numbness, and Astrid knows in her bones before her eyes and mind have fully processed it that the dragon is indeed wearing its own armor, fixed to its scales with brutal short screws.

Recoiling in surprise and peeling one hand free of the axe haft to shake some of the jarring tingling feeling from it, Astrid nearly backs into Stormfly, who she realizes only now is whimpering in confusion and fear. And of everything, it's this that outrages her most. She can control her own fear, converting it into anger to turn outward against the man now stepping away from the tiller, hands up in a clear posture of surrender, but that her friend should be afraid – that's unforgiveable.

"I thought you wanted to get away from this madman of a master of yours!" Astrid shouts at him, heart breaking as Stormfly tries to hide from the approaching shadow of one of the dragon-borne boats behind her much smaller figure. "Your men back on Berk –

Eret scowls at her, but doesn't meet her eyes. "Your chief isn't going to hurt them," he contradicts. He doesn't even raise his voice; there's more of a sigh in it than anything. "He's a good man. Everything you've said about him tells me that."

Astrid will not admit that he's probably right. Stoick is honorable right down to his core.

"Now, I'm taking my ship back. Sorry. You're nice people, even if you are insane. But I have to look after my own. Just…don't antagonize him, and maybe he'll let you go home with his terms. It's easier not to fight him. Then you might get to live."

She wants to spit his _sorry_ in his face and hope it burns like Changewing acid, and she's perversely gratified that she's not the only one.

"We antagonize _everyone!_ Coward!" Ruffnut says it better than Astrid ever could.

A lot happens in a very short space of time. Astrid would rather not discuss it. The Vikings from Berk don't come out of it well, outnumbered, disarmed, and cornered, and the soldiers have the dragons captured and bound with a chilling efficiency, unearthing Minnow and Dark Deep from their hiding places in the hold without a pause. Fearsome gets in a couple of good bites and a flare that makes the boarders stumble back a few steps before a volley of blow-darts hiss through the air and bite into his scales. His eyes roll up and all of him crashes to the deck, knocking everyone off balance.

Astrid hasn't cried over anything since she was a child, but only her rage and the eyes of strangers on her keep her cheeks dry as Stormfly goes down under a weighted net, eyes never leaving Astrid as the Nadder whimpers for her help.

The eyes of strangers, and Eret's yammering that these dragons comprise his overdue shipment and "we're good now, right? Right? We're square!"

There has to be some way she can fix this. Astrid refuses to accept this.

Groping for a solution, the wheels in her head spinning like an upturned cart, some madness seizes her and Astrid gets a Stupid Idea, an idea barefacedly wild enough to put the twins at their worst to shame.

To her friends, Astrid hisses, "Hey! Listen to me! If you ever want to see your dragons again, play along! Follow my lead, or act stupid!"

Then she raises her head, straightens her spine, and steps into the midst of her enemies, walking tall. She draws about her like a cloak every last drop of arrogance she's ever felt, all the confidence she's gained from facing down people bigger than her every day, and the white-hot flame of fury burning through her.

"Take your hands off me and my people," Astrid orders, channeling Stoick's chiefing voice, which sounds like it should carry for miles. "Is this how you treat allies?"

She is secretly delighted that the chiefing voice works. Since every eye on the ship is now turned on her, Vikings and their dragons and Drago's soldiers and treacherous dragon-trapper all equally baffled, she doesn't let it show.

How well, she wonders, can she pretend?

"What?" says someone, hopefully the soldiers' commander.

"We're not here to _spy_ ," Astrid sneers in the general direction of the voice, doing her best imitation of Dagur the first time they'd met, just before she stuck a knife in him for thinking that because she was a little girl in thick pigtails she'd back down and be bullied. It hadn't been a _big_ knife, but she had made, as it were, her point. "We're not here to _fight_. What sort of spies sail into your midst on a ship you know?"

She's half expecting to hear Tuffnut say, "Bad ones," but apparently this is what it takes to silence the usually irrepressible twin. It's a singularly useless piece of knowledge.

Astrid rolls on, building up momentum. That cart in her head may be right way up again, but she can only pray she doesn't crash because she has no way to steer – or climb out.

"See, we too are dragon masters," she claims grandly, pointing to the nearest dragon – Barf and Belch – and their paired riding harnesses, still with the twins' first draft at a water-skipping contraption attached. "I demand to speak to _your_ master."

She has no idea if this is working. The expressions on the faces she can see seem to be ones of bafflement rather than amusement or anger, and she takes some encouragement from that, seeing her own bluff and going one better.

"Tell Drago Bludvist," she says, "the chief of Berk wants to finish the conversation Drago began at the chiefs' moot!"

Finally, she gets a response. It's not from any of the soldiers still looking around for a clue about how to handle this unexpected twist, but it's almost as good.

"Hey," says Eret, "Wait, what –?"

"Someone punch him," Astrid says evenly.

There's no shortage of volunteers, and even better, none of the soldiers stand in the way of the young Vikings as they all take the opportunity to get a bit of their own back from Eret.

"Who are _you_?" the apparent leader of the boarding party says at last. "I don't know anything about allies. From where?"

She brings back the sneer, concentrating its impact on him as she faces him down. "Do you know everything that happens around here? I don't tell all my affairs to that." She gestures dismissively at Eret, who's sprawled in a heap against the bulkhead groaning slightly. Astrid can't bring herself to care at all. "Does your master confide in _you_? I'm here to negotiate."

They hesitate, but Astrid can't afford to. If she stops, she'll lose her nerve and expose this for the pantomime it is.

"Either go give him my message, or take me to him," she bites off. " _Now_."

If Drago Bludvist fancies himself a king, then Astrid of Berk will meet him on his own ground. She doesn't really know how a king would act, because it's not a concept she thinks much of. She thinks a king must be arrogant, dismissive of the little people beneath him – because how would he have time to get to know everyone under his rule? He must want power, and he must be sure of himself. So that is the role she'll play.

The soldiers' leader caves under her demands. "This way," he offers, gesturing toward one of the flying rowboats. Its bearers have set it down on one side of the flat deck, and are lurking near it. Their eyes are the only ones not staring at Astrid; instead they look fixedly at the deck beneath their feet.

The invitation apparently does not include their dragons. Some of the soldiers step in and start hauling them across the deck towards another, larger, boat, which is at least approaching in the water, propelled by humans at oars, rather than flying through the air.

"Where are you taking them?" Fishlegs bursts out, concern dripping from his words. "Don't hurt them! Those are ours!"

"Not anymore," the man nearest him growls. "All dragons belong to Drago Bludvist. You're so convinced that he wants to negotiate with you, take it up with him!"

Fishlegs turns to Astrid, eyes pleading.

It's all she can do to keep the Vikings from being put in ropes and chains of their own, and while it might hurt less to be run through by a blade than to walk away, all she can do is hope Stormfly sees some sort of reassurance in her eyes. "Those _are_ our dragons," she repeats. "We'll be coming back for them."

If she has to fight her way through every sword and claw, she will. The only comfort she has is that "kill on sight" doesn't seem to be the policy in Drago's fleet, not with dragons wearing armor and carrying boats around.

As they walk towards the rowboat and its dragon bearers, with their armed escort surrounding them – they're not in any light an honor guard – Snotlout sidles up behind her and mutters uncertainly, "Uh, Astrid…"

She hisses back, "Remember the bit where I'm in charge? Trust me. And shut up," she adds for good measure.

One wrong word, and this whole façade is over.

Whatever happens after that, it will be very bad.

Astrid holds her head high and crams the panic of improvising for all their lives down where no one will ever find it, and walks on board the dragon boat like a queen.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	8. Chapter 8

_**Stormfall,**_ **Part Eight**

There is a darkness everywhere, and the world is wrong.

Curled up in a desperate, anguished huddle, Hiccup hides beneath his wings and shakes uncontrollably, frightened and lost. He cannot remember where he is or how he got here or why he hurts so, and –

And –

No – it will not be thought of.

All around him there is darkness, but it is not the good safe darkness of a familiar cave or the comfort of the wide open night air. The flickers of light are not from stars but from hurting, the dizziness spinning behind his eyes as if they had been flying round and round and round over and over again, chasing their own tail and tumbling in close to tap claws against unwary shoulders and flanks and then dart away laughing.

But that is a good dizziness, and there is no joy in the feeling that the world is swaying even though it cannot be. Why would the world be swaying?

From very far away, Hiccup remembers another time when the world was not as it should be, when he had been shaking all over in his body and lost inside his own mind and seeing things that were not there. He had known for certain and for sure that there had been water all across the earth, and had stepped carefully across it, shaking droplets from all his paws step by step, even if no one else had seen the water. He had flinched away in dread from the open sky because there was a very great hole in it like gaping jaws, whimpering and stumbling from the teeth of the sky so that he would not be eaten, pulling at others to warn them, and had hidden away in their nest where Toothless –

And he remembers.

Yelping a plaintive _distress_ -cry, Hiccup uncoils from his makeshift hiding place, looking all around for his heart-beloved other-self. The movement makes everything dizzy even more so, but that is not important.

There is very little light, but Hiccup is used to the dark. The space around him is strange and unfamiliar and backwards, and it takes him several frantic heartbeats to make sense of the metal crossed all around him and understand that he is inside a cage.

And alone.

Alone is worse. Hiccup understands cages; he does not understand alone. Alone is like being trapped in a nightmare, unable to escape and unable to understand.

It is impossible, and Hiccup refuses to accept it. Toothless must be nearby. He has only to wait a little while, and then Toothless will be back, because that is the way it has always been.

He remembers fighting the Knotted Man to drive him away from the dragons on the menacing ships, and that _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ had lost each other in the fighting. He remembers the bargain the Knotted Man offered, all threats.

He remembers surrendering, returning to Toothless' side to be with him, so that they would be together even as the teeth of their enemy closed on them but this –!

This is a cruelty greater than anything he could have imagined.

The growing taste of panic in his throat urges him to leap and run and fight against the bars keeping him trapped here. In the white-fire sound of frenzy he cannot think, wanting only to throw his small body against the metal. He would tear himself to broken and bloody pieces if it would mean that he could tear his way out, if it would bend and flow beneath his small bare paws. For as he puts a paw down against the ground to brace himself, he feels that his claws are missing, that the only claws that scrape against the wood of the ship are small soft-claws.

Hiccup's dragon-claws are his primary weapon and his security. Knowing now as he does that his clever paws are clever because they are _human_ paws, he wears the claws also as a way not to see those paws as human, so that they will be that way only when _he_ chooses. He does not dislike his paws for what they are, for they are his great skill and his cleverness, but this is not a place for human paws – it is a place for dragon claws. Defeated and trapped, he is suddenly desperate to be a dragon as much as possible, in looking as much as doing. He reaches out, pawing at the ground of the cage all around, searching.

But his claws are gone, and – a thought struggling free of the thick swamp of panic – the sharp-claw blade he carries always is taken as well.

Breathing faster and faster as panic takes him, Hiccup reaches also for the _second_ blade he carries now, hidden a bit but quick to touch, just in case a human should take the first one away from him again.

But that too is missing, and the dragon-man is defenseless.

A terrible thin sound of fear and despair escaping him, Hiccup recoils, scrambling backwards until his back and head strike the metal of the cage.

At once he hisses in pain and paws tentatively, carefully at the blood matted into his fur there. Unconsciously, he bares his fangs and coughs with disgust as if ready to sick up again something not-to-eat, longing to lick the wound clean. Habit and forgetting prompt him to look around for Toothless – they are two-who-are-one and there is no wound beyond their paired reach – and the reminder is a greater shock.

Against the metal bars, he collapses in on himself, curling into the tightest huddle he can, and loses all his thoughts to terror. It is more than that he is alone; it is that he is only half-there, and the vulnerability freezes him inside.

Without Toothless- _beloved-self_ he is half-blind, disoriented and knocked askew, fractured and broken in spirit and body. He is used to adjusting his movements and actions for the other half of himself there or at least so close by that each knows where the other is, and to be _(click)-phuh_ only and not by choice is to be so far off balance that he cannot move.

Some time ago there was a dragon of their flock who lost her wings. She was caught in a net that was a tearing-net, biting into her and drawing blood, and she had pulled so hard to get away in her fear that when the net had caught on her wings it had torn them to the bone. Following the trail she left in the snow, others of the flock had found her and fought off the scavengers already circling and waiting, and brought her home bearing her weight on their own wings.

Because _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ had been there and not wandering far away, her friends had found dragon and dragon-boy playing together in one of the deep lakes and come to Hiccup whimpering for him to use his clever paws to make the bleeding stop and look after the wounded she.

She had lived, but never flown again, and afterwards found no joy in the doings of the nest. In time she tired of eating prey that was brought to her and would not fish in the caves far below, and wished only to sleep until there was no more waking.

To be alone now is worse still, body and heart hurting just as deeply but without the comfort of home and flock all around. This is a cold and empty place, and that too is a wrongness. Hiccup has lived all his life in the company of dragons, and with Toothless at least always nearby he has never truly been so cold that he cannot find someone with fires inside to be warm with.

He imagines that the cold is inside him, filling the emptiness left after human paws have torn into him, taking him apart piece by piece. Cruel paws have torn through his skin, separating soft bits from bones and meat to throw them away onto the ice.

There is a sharp smell of blood in the air, so it must be so. A hunter has caught him and torn him to shreds, body from body and heart from heart, pawing through all his secrets inside. He must be already dead and being taken apart for food or for play, and only dreaming of loneliness before the last embers of his fires go out.

The thought brings with it a strange acceptance, for it is at least an idea he understands. A hunter himself and flock-mate to hunters, surviving in a world of predators, he understands death.

Death is stillness and silence and not-hurting-anymore, and Hiccup wants very much not to hurt, because it is a pain beyond imagining that Toothless should be elsewhere. But if he is hurting so deeply, is Toothless hurting too?

It must not be. The thought hurts to touch, even lightly, and the void that gapes before him as he wonders is more terrible than the cage around him, the pain and dizziness from – a memory flares – a stunning blow, the alien sounds from elsewhere like the grinding of stones against stones but never ending, the stench of old suffering that clings to the metal of the cage.

Not knowing is a worse thing because he cannot think about how to fix it. If he could know that Toothless was in a cage as well he would know how to open that cage and set them both free. If he could see that the Knotted Man was threatening Toothless still Hiccup could circle around and make a distraction with snarling and breaking things so that their enemy would turn his attention elsewhere. If there was a biting trap holding his beloved other half, he could investigate it carefully until he found the weakness in it that would make it fall open.

But because he does not know, he can only fear.

The most important thing – the only thing – now is to escape from this cage and find Toothless again, and the dragon-man shakes so with the need to be away from here that all other thoughts are lost beneath that wail. When scales are torn open so deeply, they must be sewn together again with clever-ties before they can heal, and these gashes have ripped down into the core of all that they are.

Being kept apart is an open wound, jagged and broken and despairing like the sight of dragon eggs left unguarded, broken into and devoured by a predator. It is the horror of the empty, bloody nest.

To Hiccup, the trap reeks of the fear of dragons. He can taste the fears of other dragons imprisoned in this cage, knowing that they were here before and now they are gone. There is older blood under the scent of his own, and the smell of flames that left no mark on the metal. As he explores the cage, numb with horror, he finds gouges and scars from other claws on the metal beneath his own paws, and the wood of the ship-ground in between them.

Dragons cannot claw through metal that cannot be blasted, and this is that metal. Hiccup knows it by the taste of it when he puts his paws to his mouth, testing to keep thinking, to hold back the panic beating at his throat like a moth caught in a quick-careful paw.

But those who were here before tried anyway, fighting to escape.

He listens to the distant stone-on-stone sounds so that he does not have to listen to the deafening silence of a single heart, pulsing in the agony that twists in his chest with every beat. If he listens for the jumbled speaking of humans as the faraway light flickers he will not have to hear a single throat breathing quick and fearful, gasping for breath where there is no air, as if he was not trapped in the darkness and enclosed in a thing of humans, but high above all clouds. There the edges of all things are tinted with grey, even the darkest scales of Toothless and the brightest fire of the sun.

In this way he builds up a map of the cage just as he can draw a picture in his mind of a cave he cannot see, knowing from what he can touch and how long he can move before he is brought up short how far away things are from each other. The faint light from what Hiccup thinks of as another cave is ignored – it tells him nothing, it will only trick his eyes into chasing after it so that they will be so busy staring at the light they forget to see the clearer shapes in the mind.

Only once has Hiccup ever been afraid of the dark. To him darkness should mean safety, the security of a good hiding place and a home, like a cave. But this darkness is cold, so cold, a hostile, fearful darkness, and the sounds are wrong.

His fears bat him between them like hunting dragons, the thoughts he occupies himself with as useless as the small blunt claws of a mouse, captured more for playing than for eating. In fleeing from the knowledge that half of himself is lost, that he is alone, he only reminds himself that he is trapped and pacing out his cage. When he can bear the shape in his mind no more, scrambling away from the walls to huddle as far away from their confinement as possible, the void at his back strikes at him, falling away forever and empty.

He is not aware that every breath is a despairing keen, does not notice when the warring urges to press close against the bars and to stay away from them become a frantic race back and forth across the small space. He cannot tell the difference between the dizziness from being struck and the breathlessness of panic. The muscles in his back and shoulders and neck tug at each other and hurt from the tension in them, but when he pulls himself to a stop and puts his shoulder to the ground to roll and stretch until the ache eases, the touch of the metal enclosing him against his face startles him into a full-body leap. Hiccup stumbles as he lands; collapsing, he cannot bear to rise again.

Exhausted by fear and frenzy, he escapes the only way he can.

* * *

Hiccup dreams of Dark Things.

He still does not know what they were. They were not dragon-cousins, not kin. They had made no sound, and in the sightless caves beneath the earth they could not be seen, and their scent had been that of cold stones.

But they were real.

In the dream _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ are together as they should be, and Hiccup cannot remember why this would not be so. Just as before they are scavenging beneath the high cliffs that were the flanks of the mountain, and just as before the sunlight catches and shines through a shadow at the back of a hollow.

Drawn away again by curiosity, Hiccup ducks beneath the outcropping and sees beyond the shining stone a deep cave, echoing faraway and empty when he whistles a greeting-sound to it. Toothless follows him, crawling belly-low to the ground to squeeze under and in. Dreaming, Hiccup does not notice that his beloved-companion is mute when in waking they both had chirped questions and laughter and fascination, daring each other to go on.

It is a tall broad deep cave hidden within the rock, lit up with the sun on the white stone and glancing off other white stones deeper in so that the sun is lured in and trapped, and the dragon-pair too are lured in, trusting to the light even far underground, so that when the sun flies away and the last reflections are lost they too are almost lost.

Then as in the dream they should have left with the sun, retracing their steps and returning to the open air, but something had called out to them from deeper in the earth. In the dream it is one thing and all things, at once a hatchling's cry and a yip of invitation and a flash of fire and the strong itching but not crazy-making scent of dragons who are flying-to-mate and a human voice on the edge of familiarity as strange things are familiar in dreams. So dreaming feral and dream-dragon go on.

They had stepped carefully on and on, exploring first as Toothless sang the _searching looking_ songs that his smaller _dearest-beloved-self_ partner can always almost understand and Hiccup touched scent-marks against the cold stones.

Later they had known themselves lost, the scent-trail faded away into the cold of untouched stones, and hunted instead for escape. But the space they found was not the open air of the cave of the white stones but a place deep below and forgotten where there was no sense of life, as if no paws had ever walked there. The air smelled of stillness and the slow movements of heavy tired water that tastes of stone. Pausing there to rest and remember their steps, they had instead felt themselves surrounded, and when Toothless had blown a gentle flame over the stone to see, that flame had sunk into the stone and faded.

The heavy air that was the breath of the Dark Things had blinded Toothless' night-seeing song, and he had coughed at it, reluctant to hold fire in his jaws in case the thicker darkness would crawl down inside him and devour him from within, or turn all his fires to fog.

In the memory they will feel many eyes on them, brushing against the dragon-pair like a breath of cold or an intrusive nose tracing their lines, and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ will understand that they are trespassing. They will refuse to be afraid, taking courage from each other, and that resolve and determination will hold the Dark Things at bay long enough for the two of them to find their way out again.

But this is not the way of the dream.

Hiccup finds himself alone again, in the realm of the Dark Things, and all their hidden eyes are watching him. Their fog winds around him, cutting him off from Toothless and holding him back when he tries to escape, so that he forgets the shape of things around him and is lost.

Dreams change without warning and make no sense, and now in the dream Toothless was never there, will never be there.

When the dragon-feral cries out – _Tt-th-ss!_ – the sound at the heart of him finding voice even in nightmares – the darkness slips between his teeth and mutes him as Toothless was muted, as the Dark Things were mute.

 _ **silence**_ **,** says the darkness, with a sigh.

There is no control in dreams, and so Hiccup is silent. But he fights still. The darkness coils through his jaws like a snake, limp and lethargic, so he bites it fiercely, shaking his head as he would tear meat away from bones until he fights it loose. The ends of it wave and thrash like a tail, beating at his face. Rebellious, he glares as if to stare down the darkness and continues to fight until it slithers from his jaws and falls away.

The fog is snakes now – the fog has always been snakes – heavy and thick and sluggish. They coil around him and hold him still. The flickering of their tongues against his skin – in the dream it is entirely his with no pretending, in the dream he has scales that grew there because they belonged, in his dreams he is always truly dragon-born – says in signals he understands but cannot know that his fighting is hurting them.

 _ **stay**_ **,** the fog-snakes invite him. He should stay in the dark where it is quiet, he should lie still as they ask because then no one will be hurt. He will not bite them anymore, and they will not have to bite him.

In the dream there is the temptation to lie down in the dark and sleep always, to be safe and hidden, protected by the fog-snakes. Beneath his paws he feels the stone slope away, gripping the edge beneath his paws. He can smell it falling away and feel the breath of the fog-snakes below. Their breath is not a blowing-away like wings spread to catch the wind, but a sucking-in like a steam-gulping ocean-cousin drawing in a deep swallow to blast her rivals from the water.

The remembered panic dulls under the weight of the fog-snakes. He was afraid of being alone in the darkness, and now he is not alone…or was there another thing?

He does not need to be afraid, as long as he lets the fog-snakes take him and keep him, and then there will be quiet and peace and no more pain or confusion.

…but no, that was not the way of it, in the cave of the Dark Things under the earth there were no snakes and there was –

* * *

 _Tt-th-ss!_ the dragon-man cries out as he wakes, and at once forgets why, the dream slipping away like sea mist.

In his sleep he has moved from an exhausted sprawl into the security of being curled up like inside an egg. Eggs must be good safe places, but Hiccup does not remember his. No dragon remembers his egg, so this does not disturb him.

It would be hard to ask hatchlings about theirs because hatchlings have things to learn that are much more important. They must learn the voices of their mother and their mother's-mate and their close-kin, and things that are good to eat, and places that are safe to go, and how to fall when clumsy paws stand on air believing it solid as stone, and the sight of stars. They must learn who will snap and snarl when they trespass, and who will purr and lick at sore paws that have run too quickly and too soon, and who will hunt with them by cornering prey and stunning it so that small claws can tear at it, and who will stay still when tired hatchlings fall asleep across their tail in a great heap like fallen leaves.

The learning of new things is all that interests hatchlings, and they do not remember old things from before they were outside the shell. Hatchlings do not have the speaking of complicated things until they have learned about complicated things, and by then the egg is forgotten, the shell crushed into the nest by many paws and the ocean inside licked up by hatchlings and their mother and close-kin for the rich taste. Once the hatchling inside is safely born, there is no wrongness in it, just as there is no wrongness in washing that ocean from their new scales.

Hiccup is smaller than many hatchlings but he is an adult of the flock, so he has waited on guard by eggs that are hatching because the mother of the eggs does not fear his paws treading by them. His paws are too small to tear and crush in clumsiness, and Toothless will guard beside him, staying still but growling louder at all who approach, proud to be so trusted.

So eggs must be the safest of places, because all the flock protects them.

When his eyes open he sees only the insides of his wings wrapped around himself protectively, and the pain of loneliness pounces on him to knock his breath from his body and gnaw on his bones, itself rested and ready to wrestle more. It should be Toothless' broad wing spread over him, not his own small ones; Toothless should be warm and solid and real against his back, but instead there gapes only emptiness. In his sleep he has put his back to the space of the cage, part of him hoping that if he left that space open, Toothless would find him and be there when he woke.

But the feeling running all along his spine is not the rightness of his Toothless _-soul-love_ but another presence, a staring snarling hating fierceness, and Hiccup recognizes it at once.

It takes many small scratches from a stone or the holding of a tool or the pushing of a sharp-thorn through strong leather to build up calluses on the bare pads of his paws, but a single deep wound can leave a bright scar.

The eyes of the Knotted Man are a very bright scar.

In the depths of fear Hiccup is no more than any animal, thoughtless and blind. In this he is no different from any living thing, dragon or human or wild wolf.

But when they faced down the Dark Things – remembered in a flicker, echoes of the memory of the thing itself rather than the dream – to panic was to die, and they lived, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ together, because they refused to be afraid.

 _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ stood before the Dark Things without fear. _(click)-phuh_ is alone, but he knows he can get up and turn and face the Knotted Man, because he must. For Toothless, to find his other half again, he must be brave.

So Hiccup stretches out his paws, curling them as if they were the lethal claws he wishes they were, and does not leap and scramble away from the eyes he can feel burning against him. Instead he rises to all his paws and rolls his shoulders out, disdainfully, not looking at his foe, as if the Knotted Man were nothing, no threat, not of interest.

Only when that is done – when he has shown that he is not afraid, that he cannot be so easily broken, that he is not at all disturbed by this, because it does not frighten him – does he look up again and find those eyes. The Knotted Man has brought a tame fire with him, in a holding-thing of ice that does not melt, but Hiccup does not let it show in his signals how relieved he is to not face his enemy in his enemy's own darkness.

Hiccup settles himself into a comfortable sitting, from where he can leap in less than a blink, poised and ready, but where he can stay forever, working on a made thing or waiting for prey that has hidden itself to break cover, and stares back.

He is small and down and caged and unarmed. He is alone and fractured, only half of a soul. His claws are gone; his sharp-claw blade taken; his second blade that was for _maybe_ stolen, but if all he has is stubbornness, then that is what he will use.

Everything has been taken from him, except defiance. He believes that Toothless is safe. He must believe, because if Toothless were dead, he would know. His heart would stop. His breath would cease. He would drown in grief. He would be like a stone in ice, unmoving, unchanging, indifferent, and beyond the reach of the faraway sun. He would _know_.

But he will not let the Knotted Man break him.

The Knotted Man sneers to see the young dragon, caught in his cage. He mocks, and his delight is cruel, standing over his defeated rival, but beneath his laughter there is another signal, well-hidden but struggling to be free.

If Hiccup had not seen it before, in that first sharp moment when the Knotted Man realized that the dragon-man was there, he would not have recognized it, but he sees again the hatred and disgust the Knotted Man blazed at him then. His laughter now is only pretending, and that is the truth.

So Hiccup bares his teeth defiantly, mutely, not responding except to stare, to meet that gaze and drive it back with his own eyes. In a dragon nest to stare so fiercely and so long is to invite a quarrel. Staring is a way for dragons to show dominance, one over another, competing in eyes rather than flames until one lowers his head and looks away.

The dragon-feral can see that the Knotted Man despises him, is disgusted by him. For all he holds his body still and solid, he does not want to be here. He is outside the cage and can come and go as he likes, but he draws away without moving as if from a terrible stench, and he is no longer laughing even in pretend.

Hiccup has spent his whole life avoiding humans, the strongest lessons learned from them the death of his mother and the wounds inflicted on his flock-family. But even before _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ were struck from the sky and were trapped on _Buh-rrrrKK_ he had seen himself reflected in the eyes of humans. Because he is small he can steal from human settlements more easily than his larger cousins, because his paws are clever he can raid with others during hungry times to get to food that is hidden, and because he and his heart-beloved Toothless love so to wander and poke their noses into things humans have crossed their trail before.

He has seen many expressions in the eyes of humans. Surprise and fear he knows well, confusion he recognizes like a cousin. In the eyes of _Uh strrrTT_ he has seen curiosity and frustration and the edges of shy friendliness and wonder, once, like _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ were the best of dragons – although this, they knew already. The _St-t-t-t-t-t-kk_ looks at him with sadness and hopefulness and reaching-out, and a longing for what is not.

Revulsion is new.

But the Knotted Man cannot be more disgusted by Hiccup than _(click)-phuh_ is by the Knotted Man, and that anger is a warmth all around him, driving back the cold of his enemy's hatred. There are things that dragons will destroy without question, _wrong things_ , and the Knotted Man is a _wrong thing_.

The dragon-man is in a cage, but he will make this cage his nest and his refuge, the blind alley he is pursued into where he will stand and fight with the stone to his back. His claws are lost, but he will rip and tear with soft-claws if the Knotted Man steps within reach.

Hiccup offers a human smile of his own, all teeth and snarling, and sees the Knotted Man's jaw twist in an answering snarl.

They understand each other, then.

 _This_ , Hiccup signals, tapping one paw against the metal of the cage insistently. _Open_ , he commands, flicking that same paw as if brushing aside the debris of an old nest.

The Knotted Man sees the signals. His eyes follow the movements of Hiccup's paw rather than looking past them. But his snarl only deepens, and he looks away dismissively, ignoring, refusing. _No_.

He is the Alpha here, Hiccup remembers. Because he and Toothless challenged the Alpha and were defeated, it does not mean that they belong to him – they belong to the king, and only he can command them – but the young dragon is willing to be more polite if there is a chance he and his Toothless can be reunited.

 _Please_ , Hiccup says with his body, repeating his gestures and lowering his stomach towards the ground. He crouches _submission,_ but does not take his eyes away from the Knotted Man.

He will bow, but he will not beg. He will not roll over and show his vulnerable belly to such a dangerous enemy.

So he sees immediately the change in the silent speech of the Alpha of humans, that his laughter now is greater than his disgust. He is enjoying that Hiccup must plead rather than demand, but there is no pity or sympathy in his eyes.

Returning to his ready crouch, irritated, Hiccup asks _you talk you why how you curious? curious? surprise confusion talk you us talk dragon you talk you? you?_

The Knotted Man does not reply in the manner of dragons. Instead he speaks in human words, growling out the sounds as if he is poking something interesting and disgusting both with a stick to see what it will do. Because the Alpha had listened to his talking, Hiccup listens to the human words, waiting for a sound he recognizes. Humans have so many sounds and few of them sound like the thing itself. The sound for fish splashes a bit, but the sound for fire does not crackle and burn, the sound for dragon does not roar.

Finally he hears a questioning sound and a word he knows – he cannot pronounce it, because it has many sounds, but _Uh strrrTT_ uses it when she wants to know if he understands the word she used. He guesses that the Knotted Man is asking if he understands human speech.

Even among dragons, it is better for Hiccup to talk than to fight. Usually he has Toothless to protect him, but quarrels can be settled with teasing and invitations to play and offers of new ideas, if he tries.

He intends to say that he talks a little bit, that he is listening, that he is not stupid, but he knows as he stumbles through the sounds that they are not right. They are never quite right. But he speaks also with his own gestures, both at once, so that he is clear. If the sound _tt-awk_ like a seagull makes no sense then the flick of head and nose to draw attention will. If there are too many sounds missing from _ittuh_ then a sign of a small thing close to the ground can fill those sounds. The noise _isssn_ is wrong but a paw raised toward an ear turned to follow a sound makes sense. And _s-t-t-t-t-pp-TT!_ is a good sound that is fun to say, like a sneeze but with rolled eyes. It is a sound for pairs of humans who run around and talk lots and get snarled at and crash into things, a sound for adults behaving like hatchlings.

The Knotted Man sneers, dismissing his effort as if it was nothing, and Hiccup bristles, eyes narrowing in a glare. He is _trying_.

The next question he understands because he can hear the sound of the asking, and because the Alpha's eyes dart from his scales to his fur and his paws as he speaks his words, and because Hiccup has heard the question before. It is _what are you?_

Despite the threat, the humiliation, the lingering panic, the frustration, still Hiccup's jaw lolls in a dragon's smile, spontaneous and heartfelt.

 _Drakkkn!_ he declares proudly and without hesitation, one of the human words he has always recognized because it is an important word – it is self and other-self both, it is family, it is home.

It is a true thing, and no one can take that from him. That he does not have his claws does not matter. If he had no scales at all, only soft-skin and scars and spots sometimes, he would still be a dragon. That half of himself is not here matters, of course. It is a wound deep enough to gut him and leave him hollow. But it does not make this remaining half of himself any less a dragon.

And it is a very great warmth inside that the Knotted Man recoils, his control breaking like the first creak of melting ice that will fall at a dangerous whim, as if struck by the force of the young dragon's conviction.

He takes the tiniest of steps backward, jaw clenched as if against sickness inside and eyes flaring with anger, and the paw with the tame fire in it tenses, ready to strike. It is clear that he does not like this answer.

But it is the right answer; it is the only answer Hiccup can give, and it is the answer he will fight for. So when the Knotted Man moves away in even the smallest retreating, at once Hiccup is on his own feet, standing his ground and defending what he is, seizing a weapon he did not know he had.

Because there is hatred in the eyes of the Knotted Man, hatred of the dragons Hiccup claims his place among so proudly, and that is something Hiccup will not tolerate.

He sets his feet to leap or to defend, ready to attack, ready to react. He was never trained to fight, not as humans are. He learned by trying, by doing, by surviving, and by thinking and remembering. Although he prefers to keep his paws close to the ground at other times, he fights primarily with his front paws, because his fangs are not sharp and his muzzle is not long and good for biting, and it is in battle that he is most comfortable standing upright.

There is not much room to prowl in the cage, but Hiccup raises his jaw and bares his throat in a challenge, daring the Knotted Man to leap for it as dragons fight. His open throat offers a target, if his enemy is brave enough to take it, but the glare in his eyes and his bared teeth and the snarling song humming from that throat warn of deadly consequences if he tries.

For all he is caged he stalks towards his enemy, paws curled low at his sides at first in mimicry of his absent claws. Since they are there and there is no reason not to, he reaches out to take his position from the bars of the cage above, drawing his soft-claws across them in light touches or wrapping around them briefly to hide the smallest stumble from his confinement.

This cage would be far too small for most dragons – Hiccup knows from his frantic mapping of it earlier that it is not quite high enough for him to stand as tall as he can – but as he moves he understands that he can use this space. He is showing that it is not so big that he is lost in it, and that – defeated in combat as he is – he is not so submissive that he will not fight back.

He does not fear that Toothless will be harmed in retaliation for his defiance. Just as he has seen and remembered the way that humans look at _(click)-phuh_ , he has noticed the way that humans look at _Tt-th-ss_. It irks that humans do not look at them the same, but humans understand not at all what it is to be two-who-are-one, even when they come in pairs.

When humans look at Toothless they are filled with covetousness and wanting, awe and fear. When they are not running away or crumpled to the ground whimpering, they stare with hunger – not hunger to eat, but hunger to have. They stare as if Toothless were a new and unusual toy like the bouncing thing with air inside that Air-Egg Stealer found once and brought home, and then there was very much chasing of the thing back and forth and up and down and all over the caves and out into the sunlight with all eyes on it in fascination before Orange Spots bit it in his excitement and it burst with a great _pop!_ that made everyone startle.

Hiccup understands this, of course. He loves Toothless more than his own life, and Toothless is the best of dragons. Of course humans would be jealous. For everything they create, they have nothing as wonderful as Toothless is.

There was that wanting in the eyes of the Knotted Man, a wanting-to-have, and it makes no sense to destroy something so wanted. (That the air-egg toy had been destroyed had been an accident, and Orange Spots had been very sorry. Hiccup had tried to fix it but it was not at all as good afterwards even with his very best clever ties in it.)

And no human, even an Alpha of humans, could ever take Toothless away from Hiccup for real. The Knotted Man can only separate their bodies. Their soul is still a thing shared, part of both of them.

There is no hunger-to-have when the Knotted Man looks at Hiccup – there is only disgust and disbelief and alarm and outrage as the dragon-man stalks towards him, defiant despite the cage between them.

The defeat that put Hiccup here still stings, but victory is the desire to pull away – quickly smothered, but still visible – and the flash of fear in the eyes of the Knotted Man.

A true smile spreads across the dragon-feral's face, tongue flashing, and for a moment he is truly unafraid. _You scared_ , he laughs, eyes widening in pride and triumph. _You scared!_

The Knotted Man has missed his pounce. His enemy should have struck while Hiccup was still thoughtless with fear at being trapped and caged. Now he is angry instead and thinking again.

That anger gives him courage, rich as the sunlight after _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ escaped the absolute darkness of the Dark Things unscathed, and Hiccup does not bother to try to issue his challenge in the words of humans. But he has noticed that the Knotted Man sees and hears more of the way dragons speak than he can answer in the same way, just as Hiccup can listen to more human words than he can speak in reply.

So he keeps his challenge simple, and clear.

 _This_ , he indicates the cage, the Knotted Man, the ship all around – it must be a ship – and everything beyond, _wrong_ _disgust wrong sick distaste hatred wrong_. He shudders and grimaces with the wrongness of it. _You. Enemy._

The Knotted Man curls the side of his mouth in a snarl at that, but he cannot seem to decide if he is angry or disbelieving.

Hiccup does not care whether he believes it. Humans do not have to believe things for them to be true.

 _Hunting_ , the dragon-feral reinforces, keeping the tips of one paw on the cage above but crouching in all the rest of him, ready to leap as if there were not a barrier between them.

Shouting his outrage, the Knotted Man steps forward in his turn, narrowing the distance between them to little more than the cage and the slash of Hiccup's paw. Standing over his captive and setting the tame fire on the metal of the cage where it burns all alone, he makes a small blade appear in his heavy paw and draws it against the metal to make a rattling sound like bones.

It is Hiccup's own prized sharp-claw blade, and the dragon-man hisses in rage as the blade dances against the bars between them, and the rough lock on the side of the cage that opens, and back again.

And then, quick as lightning, quicker than Hiccup would have expected from a human so big and heavy, he spins the blade up and around to slash at the paw still braced on the top of the bars.

Hiccup stumbles backwards, retreating without coordination, reacting without thought. Tuned to the smallest of gestures and tricks of posture as he is, he had seen the movement just in time to snatch his paw away, and the blade that would have sliced through bone instead rings bright and true against the metal.

Losing his balance, Hiccup catches himself before he can fall entirely, and manages to turn the stagger into a controlled drop back into a ready crouch.

But he does not miss the message: his snarls and threats and challenges mean nothing, and the Knotted Man can drive him back into submission with a single blow.

He refuses to be cowed, and glares back with no less ferocity. He wants out of this cage and he wants to be with Toothless and he wants to be free of the Knotted Man and his _wrongness_ – and now he wants his sharp-claw blade back, too. And he has little enough doubt about who has torn his claws from him.

 _You stay_ , the Knotted Man commands, his gestures dismissive.

When he turns his back and walks away, taking the light and not looking back, he laughs in the way of humans. It is a good pretending, but Hiccup can hear that it is not a solid sound. There is a weakness to it like a stone that shifts only a bit under the weight of many dragons, until one day it gives way entirely and the whole mountain changes its face.

Alone again, Hiccup thinks about breathing, deliberate and deep and sure, holding the air inside him and feeling it turn to _fire_ in his heart. He has long since accepted that his fires inside cannot be breathed out the way many of his nest-mates breathe fire, but the heart-fire is a true thing.

He would rather be angry than afraid, but that anger must keep him warm, not burn him to ashes.

 _A_ _cage is not death_. He has been a trap-breaker all his life, he knows this.

If the Knotted Man believes that traps will keep them apart, he does not understand _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_.

* * *

 _To be continued_

* * *

 **P.S.:** Assuming I put together enough content, I'm hoping to post a complete soundtrack at the end rather than chapter by chapter. (It is, after all, a work in progress; suggestions anyone? Otherwise you're just going to end up with classical music, film music, and breathy female pop singers.) But I feel I have to highlight a song that worked for this chapter so perfectly I nearly adopted it as the anthem for the whole story: "Lions!" by LiGHTS. "Lions make you brave/Giants give you faith/Death is a charade/ _You don't have to feel safe to feel unafraid_."


	9. Chapter 9

_**Stormfall,**_ **Part Nine**

The boat rocks beneath her, but its flight is surprisingly smooth. For all that it's suspended from the dragons carrying it, the three of them laboring to keep it aloft with the addition of the Vikings from Berk in addition to the soldiers guarding them, they might as well be on a smooth ocean.

Astrid doesn't trust it. It's impersonal and extravagant and not a patch on her Stormfly. Her body knows it's flying when it shouldn't be, and it reminds her of the time her uncle Finn's little racing ship had hit a rough patch wrong and rolled right over, the combination of a too-sharp turn against the racing wind and a poorly timed collision with a breaking wave. For a moment almost too short to comprehend, had it not been seared into her memory, Astrid's body and her head and the ship had all spun in different directions, and it had seemed the entire world had paused as if reluctant to succumb to the proper order of things and fall.

It would go against the impression she's trying to show to cling to the sides and gape over the edge, so instead Astrid stares straight ahead and tries to examine the way the craft works out of the corners of her eyes without anyone noticing. She clamps down on the urge to shiver under the occasional gusts, the cold of the ice field bleeding into the air, because once she starts, she'll never stop, and she refuses to let these warriors see her tremble.

Instead she begins to wonder who is controlling the trio of dragons. They don't have riders. There are no reins or leads, only the ropes connecting harnesses to the hull of the boat. The rope nearest her is fraying slightly, its metal core showing through, she notices. And yet the dragons obeyed with no more than a shout from the commander of the soldiers, cooperating with each other with remarkable coordination and heading towards their destination without disagreement.

On Berk, anyone who tried something this complicated with three dragons would end up with the boat pulled timber from timber in the confusion. Astrid is better with dragons than anyone else on Berk right now – she works harder at it, she has to admit, if only to herself – and it would take all her skills and all her patience to keep this from ending in curses and splinters and small fires.

The mystery of the dragon-borne ship is a distraction, she knows, and not what she needs to be thinking about right now. What has she _done_?

The plan was to scout this fleet, the force of a madman even Stoick fears, from a safe distance. Not get captured in minutes and then walk willingly into the heart of it!

She promised to bring everyone home safely. She gave her _word_!

And yet here she is, and she needs to figure out a new plan before this ship lands. If she can't lie convincingly enough – and what lie she is going to tell, she still doesn't know – she and her cohorts will probably be killed, and their dragons as well.

So Astrid thinks frantically, trying to build a convincing story while not letting even a twitch of it show on her face. Keeping her desperate thoughts private, she hangs out arrogance and confidence and the slightest trace of boredom for all to see like a banner. Hopefully any twitch will be seen as a sneer of disdain, unimpressed with the slight rocking motion of the flying boat. While none of the soldiers seem much concerned about the strangers in their midst, and the only eyes on Astrid are those of the other young Vikings she brought into this, she has to perfect this disguise _now_ , long before the commander of this deadly fleet turns his scrutiny on her.

Who is she, this Astrid who claims to be an ally of Drago Bludvist? She must be here on purpose. She came here deliberately to meet with a man who has an army unlike anything else under the sun. So she is not afraid.

She is a warrior – no commander of a force like the one below would respect anyone who was not a warrior. But she hasn't brought an army of her own, or any of her own ships. Why?

Because they would be outnumbered? Because she does not want to start a fight when she's come here to propose an alliance? That must be it. This Astrid, the Astrid she must show, that she must be, doesn't have a fighting force with her because she doesn't need it. She has so much confidence in her offer that she does not believe it will be rejected. She doesn't imagine for a moment that she will have to fight her way out.

A man with an army must have ambitions, Astrid knows. She's heard far too much of that from Dagur, who because he has fighters and ships, and doesn't care if he loses any of them, believes that he can take what he wants, whenever he wants, without consequence. And Stoick had said that Drago wanted to be a king over all the tribes.

Briefly, she toys with the idea of claiming to be a queen herself. But as soon as it occurs to her, she dismisses it again as too complicated a lie. She knows how to be a chief, but not a queen. And she identified herself to the boarding party as being from Berk. She used Stoick's name.

So…closer to the truth, then. She will still claim to be Stoick's heir. His messenger, even. His ambassador. Here not to spy but to negotiate peace.

But the ships below howl their true purpose – war. This does not look like the fleet of a man who wants peace.

She doesn't want to fight Drago, because – Astrid decides – that would be a waste of resources for two great armies to fight each other.

Whatever else happens, she must not let this Drago learn that Berk's army is nothing of the kind.

Berk's strength is in its people and their stubbornness and resilience, and in its land, and lately in its dragons, but Astrid's people are not soldiers like these men. Their dragons are not the well-trained armored fighters that the ones that landed on Eret's ship.

And yet somehow, she must convince Drago that Berk is not worth attacking, too fierce to take on, too tough a mouthful to bite into – no threat to him, unless he forces a battle. And in doing so, she cannot trap herself in too clever of a lie.

Determined to keep her thoughts hidden behind her frozen mask, Astrid thinks suddenly of Hiccup. The young man raised a dragon may not always understand her words, but his ability to read her intentions in the way she moves, the smallest twitch of her hands, the tension in her body, the angle she holds her head at…he knows her thoughts before she does, she suspects sometimes.

If there's the slightest deception in the way she speaks to him – if she's asking him to come down from somewhere with anything but the most honest of intentions, if she's frustrated by a stampede through the center of town that he and Toothless were right in the middle of and probably responsible for – he knows, and will have none of it.

And that's the easiest way to talk to him, sometimes. She has to relax and let her feelings show through. She has to be honest, and trust him to understand that she's trying, and let her body do the talking.

It's taken some work for Astrid to adjust. She doesn't readily share the way she thinks and her innermost thoughts with anyone. Maybe other people don't struggle with it so. The people of her tribe are a gregarious bunch, open and uncomplicated, and sometimes Astrid feels like there's a wall between them and her, one she put there herself.

But she learned. She knocked a few stones from that wall and used them to get a step up so that she could see over it. It helps that Hiccup expects nothing from her than what she is, that as long as she means him no harm and does not sneak up on him, he is content to let her do as she wishes, even if what she decides to do is nothing.

To lie to Drago, she will need to build that wall up again stronger and higher than ever before, and paint it with a brazen lie.

So Astrid armors herself in confidence, keeping her face and posture firm and believing it so strongly that even her body believes. If there is a weight on her, she tells herself that it is the weight of that armor rather than the pressure of knowing that she has tossed her life onto the board with a terrible hand of markers to bluff with, and hazarded the others as well. They are counting on her to buy back their safety and lose none of them to a more cunning gambler.

She has to believe her own story if anyone else is going to.

Beside her, she can see her friends. Without exception, they are struck dumb, as much by the spectacle of the fleet and the danger of being prisoners among strangers as by her command to say nothing and trust her, but no harm has come to any of them yet. The twins are just staring around, eyes wider than Astrid has ever seen them, and for all that they fight over a misplaced word or a dull morning, they're pressed shoulder-to-shoulder as if they intend to make themselves into a Zippleback. Every few seconds, the horns on their helmets knock together as their heads turn, trying to see everything at once. On Berk that would be good for an afternoon's squabbling. Here it passes unnoticed.

Snotlout is close behind them – he'd made a last-minute show of defiance when a soldier grabbed Ruffnut to haul her on board, entirely unnecessarily, and had charged to her defense. Somewhat to her surprise, Astrid thinks the gesture might have been sincere, rather than yet another attempt to show off. Snotlout has rare lapses of actual decency when there's no one to strut for. She hopes her own illusion of confidence is more solid than his. He's trying not to look intimidated, and it's not entirely working. He has that edgy look he gets, when Spitelout is chewing him out over some failing or another, or when Fearsome is refusing to let go of something the Nightmare has stolen to chew on and smash, or when his gang of friends and hangers-on has gotten out of control and run amok beyond whatever trouble Snotlout had intended to get them all into.

She's not at all surprised, though, to see that Fishlegs is focusing on the dragons rather than the soldiers. He's staring up at the trio of dragons tacking about to compensate for the wind off the ice field, lips moving as he tallies up traits and sorts them into categories, doubtless making notes for his book. And yet, if this is Fishlegs keeping calm, Astrid is very glad that he has something to distract him. Every time the flying boat comes off its otherwise even keel to the slightest degree, the shift knocks him off balance and into one or the other of the two armored men flanking him. He's cringing away from them both, trying to keep his bulk inside a space too small for him, and all but holding his breath in the attempt.

And Astrid has no way to tell her thoughts and half-assembled plans to any of them, so suddenly she desperately wants to. Her plan is no more than a board with a few nails sticking out of it, an inferior weapon and a worthless shield, and she could use a few more hands on it, on the off chance that one of those hands might be unexpectedly holding a hammer.

Hey, the last time she and Stoick had to empty the twins' pockets by force, she couldn't believe the junk they'd been hiding. A hammer would have been refreshingly normal, much more so than the cache of dead beetles Tuffnut had been hoarding, or Ruffnut's string of scrap-fabric flags she'd been parading about town with while announcing that she was going to teach Barf and Belch to dance.

The five of them do not always get along very well. Astrid has often despaired of her entire age group, although she has more hope for the younger children of the tribe, the ones now growing up with Terrible Terrors as pets and Deadly Nadders as neighbors and the knowledge that if they're woken up in the middle of the night because something is on fire, it probably wasn't set on purpose. But her people are survivors, even these ones, for all she's sometimes wanted to feed them feet-first to dragons. She will have to trust them to play along with whatever she comes up with.

The sole comfort she has is that Eret is not on board. She'd lost track of him as they were firmly escorted onto the flying rowboat, and she's not at all sorry. For one thing, the next time she sees that treacherous face of his, she's going to hit it with the closest thing she can lift.

For another, a handful of words from him could expose her for the liar she is. He knows they didn't come here to make an alliance with anyone. At least if he's somewhere else, the message might take a while to travel all the way to the ears of Drago Bludvist.

Or so she hopes.

When the flying boat sets down on the deck of the largest ship, still with that same eerie coordination, no host of warriors meets them with weapons drawn, so if Eret has run his mouth, the news hasn't yet reached this ship.

There's very little relief in that.

"Off," the leader of the soldiers orders just for the sake of doing so, putting a hand on her elbow as if to drag her away. Astrid snatches it back from him and gives him her best imperious glare. She won't be led. She has to sell this disguise of hers with everything she has, and part of the role she's resolved to play is superiority.

That's what a king thinks of himself, right? Superior to everyone? Or at least, that's what kings are like in the stories she's heard. Granted, several of those were from Johann, who is a notorious stretcher of the truth.

But then the ship she steps onto of her own will does not betoken a captain with much appreciation for subtlety, so perhaps a little exaggeration is exactly what she needs.

Their little party remains hemmed-in by men in armor as the commander leads them across the deck, keeping them from seeing much. Astrid doesn't look around, because the self-assured ambassador she's playing is too sure of herself to stare. After all, what does she have to fear from _allies?_ But she has no doubt that the others are staring enough for her as well.

There are so many things to look at that even the people surrounding them cannot block all of it, and Astrid sees enough to all but overwhelm her. Her mouth dries out with amazement even though it's not hanging open – she checks, discreetly, tightening her jaw until she feels her teeth grind.

The ship is not only huge, the ship is _full_ , and everywhere she looks, there are the tools of war. The half-open crate she passes holds crossbows packed neatly; the stubby barrel beside it is full of bolts for those bows. She can hear, quite clearly, the sound of whetstones spinning, and the keening scream of a sword or axe blade held to it, edges being honed against the stone. The quickest possible glance she can snatch reveals not one whetstone, but many, teams of men working to keep them rolling, casting off sparks from the metal. Several paces away, a man beats dents out of a piece of metal larger than any shield, and with a strange curve to it. Not until he has passed out of view does Astrid realize that she saw a piece just like it, bolted to the hide of one of the dragons that boarded Eret's ship.

But to Astrid, the remarkable thing about the fleet, at first glance, isn't the weaponry built into the ship itself, or the amount of good steel being worked. The number of ships gathered here is staggering, but the Archipelago might be able to match them one to one, if all the clans gathered together and made common cause and put all they had into their shipyards. As extremely unlikely as that might be, it might be possible if they included every little fishing ketch they have. What impresses her isn't the size of the ships, although she doesn't understand how anything this big and this heavy can possibly float, much less move. Viking ships are built light, sleek, maneuverable, and swift, nothing like these iron-clad behemoths.

It isn't even the dragons. The ones carrying the rowboat and the armored fighters were just the beginning. From the deck, she can see many more. Even at a glance, though, they're not like the ones back home. These wait quietly, as much a part of the ship as the windlass mounted towards the stern – dragons are powering it, she notices, a pallet of material rising as a matched pair under a yoke walk slowly away.

No, the truly incredible thing is the discipline, and the single-mindedness of it all.

She could never get Berk this organized, not given a thousand years and Thor's own hammer. The discipline it must take to have so many people in one place! No one is arguing – no one at all! There are no women, not that Astrid can see, which she dismisses as just not having seen them yet; on Berk, anyone who says that women can't fight will discover very quickly just how wrong they are. But the men aboard the ship move in teams, and orders given are followed immediately.

It's so organized, even just aboard this one ship. Astrid is familiar with how her island works, but she can't even begin to figure out what must it take to feed and supply and command a whole fleet.

"Wait here," the commander of the soldiers says over his shoulder, halting them nowhere in particular, but the deck of the ship is a labyrinth, so for all Astrid knows, this is the designated "captured possible spies" waiting area. There's even an uncomfortably large hatch beneath their feet, and while a trapdoor into the ocean for easy disposal of said spies is unlikely – the ship would sink, with such a hole in its hull – Astrid would rather not be standing on it. The deck is dotted with such hatches, though, if smaller ones. Any one of them might drop her and all her friends into whatever brig this ship boasts, or worse.

Best to stay where they were put, perhaps – and she's an _ally_ , Astrid reminds herself. What has she to fear?

Momentarily, the young Vikings are left as alone as they're likely to get.

"Astrid, what's the plan?" four voices hiss more or less in unison.

She doesn't let them see her waver. "The plan is that you agree with whatever I say – even if you know it's not true! – and don't tell anyone anything! Anyone asks you a question, send them to me." It's just too much to explain, and she's making up most of it as she goes along.

"But you know what you're doing, right?" Ruffnut asks.

"Absolutely."

Her face falls. "Oh."

Silently, Astrid curses. She's let her illusion slip, just for a moment, and it's a lapse she can't afford to repeat. So she steps back into that role and nails Ruffnut with a glare, like she's going to toss the other young woman overboard if she asks another nosy question. "I said, _absolutely_."

"Oh!" Ruffnut looks relieved. "Okay."

The man who stalks towards them, then, does not wait for fanfare. He doesn't need it. Astrid would have recognized him just from Stoick's description, although now she can fill in the details for herself, like the nose that belongs on an eagle with a history of prizefighting, and the hair that's been woven into ropes. The scars across his face do nothing for his features, and neither does the expression of what she suspects is permanent bad temper. It is not a face she could ever imagine laughing in anything but a sneer, or relaxing over a meal with friends.

This is not a man who has friends.

Astrid steps forward to intercept him before he can reach them, choosing her own ground and playing her role as strongly and with as much conviction as she can muster. She thinks of the fear in Stormfly's eyes and the way her dragon friend had whimpered.

The rest is easy.

"Go sit," she commands the others, her voice suddenly cold. "Go wait. This is chiefs' business." Perhaps it's her imagination, but she thinks Drago's footsteps slow, just a little, as she performs. "We're here to deal," Astrid goes on, building the lie. "I'm in no danger." She addresses this to Snotlout, as if he were really the bodyguard he'd offered to be, showing the warlord something he might believe.

It leaves her standing alone, unarmed, with only a shield of lies and her own courage as her defense, as her friends step back. But no one stops them, and she takes that as encouragement.

"I remember Berk," the enormous man growls, looking her over, "and its fool chieftain. Where is your oaf of a chief? Has he shrunk so in fear that he can hide behind a little girl who walks into my hands claiming herself my ally?"

Anger at the insult to her mentor and leader gives Astrid's words fire, and she hurls them back at him with that confidence. "Stoick?" she retorts. "Stoick is back on Berk. _I_ am here to deal with you."

Let him hear _bargain_ in that if he likes. The lies spill from her, flavored with just enough truth to sweeten them. "What a waste it would be if our armies were to fight. I'm here to decide if we should be allies instead."

Everything is spinning, but there is an instant of magic hanging there, ripe for the seizing. Falling is not flying – at some point it will hurt – but oh, the rush of it! "How goes your war?"

He stares at her until she wants to fill the biggest tub she can find with hot water and stay in that bath until she shrivels into a walnut and drowns. There's no leer in his gaze, at least; he looks at her like she's a performing animal, a puppy barking at his heels. The moment she ceases to amuse him, he will destroy her.

"Bold little girl," he says finally. "I do not wage war. I make peace. Your world burns under the onslaught of beasts like that –" He raises the staff he holds in one hand and points it at one of the dragons waiting passively in the alcoves tucked away in the corners of the vast ship. "– but I will end that. Only I can control and tame the dragons, and I will restore peace to this world before they destroy your people forever."

Astrid scoffs dismissively. Some part of her deep inside is standing with its mouth open, stuttering, but it's buried deep within; the rest has its hands on that spark and is laughing as her sleeves catch fire. "Is that all you have to offer? Once you know the secret to taming dragons, it's not hard. They work for us now. They fight our enemies."

Does he twitch, at that? His features are too heavy for her to see his eyebrows rise, if they do.

She can barely recognize the way she thinks about "tame dragons" in the ones she can see here. On Berk, dragons fly freely in and out of the village, following people around, _participating_. Sometimes she can't hear herself think for the cacophony of a tangle of Nightmares screaming back and forth to each other, reveling in the noise that they make and the excitement of having humans join in with their roaring. They investigate things, sometimes to destruction, sometimes to delight. And as dragons and Vikings learned to coexist, so too did they learn to trust, so now dragons go about poking their noses into the everyday business of the village, interrupting them at their work for the far more important task of scratching itchy scales, and generally acting like unruly children.

The dragons the warlord looming over her calls "tame" – if she didn't know better, she wouldn't be able to tell them from the carts and pulleys. She's seen more personality and initiative in a yak. But she says none of this. Instead she casts about for something that might show a common cause that she has no real desire to find.

"We ended the war and our neighbors repaid us by raiding us. No better than the dragons!" Astrid essays a laugh, and it doesn't ring too falsely. "Imagine their surprise when we turned dragons against them. You should have seen those ships burn." This she can say truthfully, and let that show.

Drago sneers at her. "So confident, little girl," he says, and his voice is mocking. "Are you so sure that they are not controlling you?"

For a moment, Astrid's façade cracks. She has no idea what he means. But the man goes on without noticing, the loathing in his voice growing deeper and clearer with every word.

"Dragons are deceptive, vile beasts. If you believe that they are more than that – if you allow them the slightest leeway – if you show them anything but an iron hand and the whip – they will take advantage, infesting your lives and undermining all that you are. That is why my army is so powerful, because I understand that humans can only be free of the threat of dragons if _we_ are in control."

Astrid covers over the crack in her mask at once, and does not laugh in disbelief. He is speaking to her now as if they were allies, as if he is teaching her something important to remember, so she can hope that he believes her lies. But pretending that she really wants to hear this bile sickens her, even as the stench of it gets worse.

He curses dragons as vile, when he holds them in chains? Calls them manipulators? The most manipulative Stormfly has ever been is pretending to be hungry to cadge a treat, or acting neglected to win extra attention. To hear the man talk you would think there was some grand conspiracy.

Dragons don't scheme. They're clever, but they don't plot. Humans scheme. This man – he's the worst kind of schemer. A man with big plans, and the force to put them into action despite any resistance he encounters.

Drago's face twists in what might be a smile as he eyes her lack of reaction, warming to a clearly favorite theme. "You come to me proposing to ally your forces with mine?"

A pause goes on too long, and belatedly Astrid realizes that she was meant to answer that. "Perhaps," she says coolly, noncommittally.

"Perhaps," he scoffs. "Do you have the vision to enforce the order of the world, little girl? To protect your people from their corruption? Allowing dragons to think themselves equal to humans demeans the humans. It diminishes them to no more than beasts. Look around you. This is true peace. These dragons will never again rise up and threaten –"

She can't help it. "You've met Hiccup, haven't you?" Astrid blurts out.

The interruption stops him cold, and he looks at her as if she's talking nonsense, outraged that she should dare to interrupt him.

"You know," she adds hurriedly, "about so tall?" She waves a hand above her head to demonstrate – Hiccup is irritatingly taller than her when he bothers to be. "Reddish-brown hair? All the freckles?"

Now Drago looks at her like _she's_ crazy, which Astrid is rather pleased with. Let him be on the back foot for once, even if it's just for a moment. So she gives him her absolute best grin, the one that shows her canines and has made even proudly deranged people back away _just_ a step or two. "…thinks he's a dragon?"

The man turns an impressively ugly shade of purple.

"Oh yeah," Astrid declares. "You've met."

For a moment Drago seems to choke on his words. "How do you know of that…creature?" he manages finally.

 _He's Stoick's son and actually I think he's my friend on a good day and oh by the way I owe him my best friend and the lives and safety of all my people._

… _sorry, Hiccup. I need this lunatic to trust me._

Instead she points at the scar under her left eye, bright and clear and still far too close for comfort, the one that Hiccup had put there last year. "We've met too." She's entirely nonchalant about it, like her peculiar friend doesn't matter to her. "This happened. But I paid him back for it."

She broke his heart, she's pretty sure, and she's still not quite sure why he forgave her for that.

But if she disowns her strangest friend in the face of this madman, it makes her the enemy of Drago's enemy.

And it seems to work, because Drago grumbles, "Not dearly enough, it would seem. Let us hope you fight your enemies better than you swat pests." He waves her off contemptuously. "Look at my army if you will, little girl, and choose your enemy wisely. This is the future."

A future of men in armor, with no apparent purpose other than war. A future of dragons in chains, commanded by a man who hates them. A grey world, heavy and brutal, with all its brightness hammered into the sheen of the edge of a sword.

She can imagine it. And it disgusts her.

"This is what you will face, if you and your people turn on me. I offered your chief a place in this world once before. Do not again take so long to decide."

Secretly, Astrid is horrified at what her people – Viking and dragon both – will face when this madman turns on Berk.

Aloud, she pours that disgust into disdain and says, "So impress me."

* * *

"Hey!" someone yells. "You! Get away from it."

Eret snatches his hand back from the muzzle wrapped around the Nightmare's snout, balling that hand into a fist at his side. He'd love to brandish it in the man's face, to pitch him and his peculiar armor over the side of the ship and let him struggle to stay afloat, or at the very least to point out sarcastically that he wasn't going to take the muzzle off, because surely Eret himself would be the first to be bitten and burned if he did.

It was nothing personal. But try explaining that to a Monstrous Nightmare.

Try explaining that to a Viking.

"I brought these dragons in," he says instead, digging his fingers into his palm until they begin to hurt. "Until someone pays me for them, they're mine."

The quartermaster looks at him with barely veiled loathing, and snorts. Eret knows the man, has dealt with him before often enough to know that they're always going to hate each other, could pick him out of a pack of equally condescending, unjustly arrogant, overly officious weasels – no offense to weasels, weasels are fine and honorable animals next to this man, deserving of having banners and shields painted in their likeness – but he can never remember his name. He can't bring himself to care.

In a perfect world, one day he'll get to break that flat board on which the man logs down his arrival and the numbers and types of dragons he's brought – probably; Eret cannot read the incomprehensible symbols – over the man's thick head and feed him the interchangeable pieces of squeaking chalk. But it's not that the quartermaster himself is any danger. His ledger is the only weapon he carries, and that he seems to keep in his head, and the most he's likely to do is not pay Eret what he's owed. Eret is pretty sure that the other man would come off worse, if he gave in and threw a punch.

The soldiers who will come running if he so much as yelps in pain, and the consequences for making trouble of any kind – that's what keeps Eret from telling the man what the trapper really thinks of him.

Although, given the way the people around the quartermaster look at him – or don't look at him, actually – they might not step in _too_ quickly.

"Mercenaries," the quartermaster mumbles, not bothering to lower his voice. "You're late. And short of your quota."

A thousand excuses spring to Eret's throat – _my ship was caught in a storm, my life was hijacked by Vikings, my base was burned to the ground_ – but he realizes suddenly he's not at all interested in apologizing in any way. The quartermaster doesn't care.

No one in Drago's fleet gives a damn about Eret, son of Eret, and his friends, and for all he's been trying to block the memories out, he can't stop hearing Astrid asking why he works for someone he hates. He can't help but remember the strangely earnest way that Fishlegs had shown an interest in the collected knowledge of Eret's clan, can't avoid missing the strange camaraderie of trading cheerfully blatant lies with Snotlout. Already he kind of misses cobbling together outrageous stories out of whole cloth to impress the twins and conspiring with Tuffnut to send Ruffnut on fruitless quests into the hold for nonexistent items before she caught on to the game and threatened to make that silly Zippleback sit on them both so she could draw on their faces unimpeded.

He knows he'd only started to enjoy their company because he was missing his real friends, the people on his crew who would go to the end of the world and back for him and with him, but in the face of the bleak hostility of Drago's fleet, that thin fellowship seems like a very warm blanket indeed.

Here he's a scavenger, less important than the newest recruit and least-experienced soldier. Even the people scrubbing the deck, sloshing sea water that reeks pungently of lye around to wash off the smuts of soot and treading feet and iron and sweat and blood, look down on him. He's good only to be used and underpaid for the risks he takes, shunted aside and forgotten until the next time he crawls to them offering up – tribute, Astrid had called it, and the word sticks in his skin like a burr.

All right, so he regrets getting the Vikings caught. _But look_ , he argues with himself and their shades as the quartermaster orders dragon wranglers around and they inspect the Vikings' pets, _I have to look out for myself. I didn't know that the fleet was here already,_ he would tell them, if they were here. If they didn't just attack him on sight – he can feel a ripe bruise developing across his ribs.

He knew the fleet was coming here, though.

They would have been seen anyway. Getting it over with, that was just practical. He doesn't owe them any more loyalty than he does Drago.

 _Yes,_ he answers accusing and imaginary glares. _Fine – I'm scared of Drago, all right?_

He's like the ship. He goes with the wind, Eret tells himself. Running against the wind is a quick way to shatter and sink and leave everyone relying on him to drown.

Maybe he's the coward Ruffnut called him, but he's a coward with his skin mostly in one piece.

He folds his arms across his chest, recognizing even as he does so that he's protecting himself against a brand that might read _late_ to go with the _untrustworthy_ he imagines the other one says. But then, for all he knows, it might say _barrels_. Eret doesn't read any language but the clan's, and little enough of that. Slouching against one of those barrels, waiting for the quartermaster to stop stalling and just pay up already, Eret realizes that not all those eyes on him are imaginary.

Those, he has to look away from.

As it turns out, capturing tame dragons is totally different from capturing wild ones. And not because it's laughably easy.

It's different because he feels, inexplicably, really bad about it.

On the way over here, he'd pushed his way into the rowboat with the ensnared dragons, knowing that if he didn't insist they wouldn't pay him, and then soon enough he'd be answering for why, if he filled his quota, they still had that payment, and so surely, didn't that mean he was at fault? It's the sort of double-dealing and petty dishonesty he's come to expect; if he doesn't stay on top of them, they'll rob him blind.

There'd barely been room for him and the dragons and far too many soldiers reeking of rust and sweat and the strange spices someone is making a fortune trading all the way this far north – no flying troop carrier for him! He doesn't rate that kind of treatment.

Maybe the beasts watched him because he was just something slightly more familiar, maybe they were looking to him because they'd gotten used to him, but he couldn't look at the pet dragons then, and he can't meet their eyes now.

It's like he let them down. These cosseted pets don't understand what's going on. The wild ones, at least they know that humans and dragons are meant to be enemies. They understand humans preying on them.

It's _fair_. Eret and his trappers are smarter and they can build traps and cages, and they can use dragon-root darts and weapons, but the wild dragons have their size and their fire and their fangs…and a wickedly clever feral working with them.

The pets are like children, heartbroken that they're being taken to be whipped instead of the party they were promised.

The confusion that cheerfully dumb Zippleback is showing as one of the wranglers pinches its hide and then kicks its leg for twitching away – it's tougher than Eret expected it to be.

Brushed aside and ignored, Eret tries to identify the emotion bubbling inside him like he's a stewpot, and finally realizes that it's shame. He is ashamed to be what he is.

Normally Eret can live with himself by looking to his friends and telling himself that everything he does is for them, but none of them are here now. The only person he's looking out for is himself, and as Astrid's clever Nadder tries to rustle its wings and can't get any motion going under the net it's wrapped in, right now Eret doesn't like himself well enough for that to be worth it.

He doesn't know what he's going to do about it, though, or how he's supposed to make up for betraying the trust the Vikings and their pets put, however reluctantly, in him.

But he knows where he's going to start, and that's by playing both ends against the middle. He's going to start by keeping his mouth firmly shut.

Despite himself, Eret is quite impressed with Astrid. In amongst everything else, he's weirdly satisfied to be proved so right. _See?_ he'd like to say to her. _See, I told you so! I told you that you were going up against something bigger than you imagined!_

But it's some nerve that girl has. He doesn't know what game she's playing, but maybe he can buy back some slight goodwill with her by looking out for the Vikings' dragons.

After all, he does still need to get back to Berk to retrieve his friends. Maybe it would be worth making a run for it, once they're all together again, and getting well clear of this mad land. Drago will have all these dragon riders to chase after, maybe he won't notice that Eret and his crew are gone. Talking dragons and dragon-breaking warlords and dragon-loving Vikings…Eret misses the days when things made sense.

No matter what else he does, Eret can't bring himself to leave his people. It's not because Stoick would hurt them. He doesn't believe that for a moment. A couple of days of sailing with the Vikings and a few days more in those strangely comfortable cells…

Eret had forgotten that not everyone is Drago.

It's kind of pleasant to be reminded of that.

If he absolutely had to, he could leave his crew there. They'd be fine. They're resourceful lads, and good people; they'd find a place on Berk. But he doesn't want to. They're his friends. They're a team. He trusts them in ways he can't trust anyone else. They've looked out for him when he needed their support, and he knows them better than he knows even members of his own far-flung family. Eret has too many cousins and half-cousins and relatives by marriage to keep track of, but he knows more about Byrne's ongoing struggle to keep his two little brothers from running off with every half-pretty girl under the sun than he does about all his own cousins put together.

He's not just going to abandon them.

"Hey!" Eret takes no little pleasure in yelling back at the quartermaster. "You might want to hold off on splitting them up and sending them off for a while!"

The man stares at him as he would a dog that started to talk. He's got a pouch in one hand that hefts as if there's silver in it, and Eret experiences a quick pang of regret. If only it was still that simple.

"What are you talking about now?" the quartermaster snorts, clearly ready to scrape Eret off the bottom of his boots and get rid of him.

"These dragons are trained," Eret says. "They belong to the emissaries from Berk. You know what that means?"

The quartermaster doesn't volunteer a guess, so Eret makes one up. "It means the Vikings are going to want them back. And if they're in good condition, and readily available, what do you think those barbarians will pay to get them?"

He can see the moment greed catches hold of the quartermaster. It strikes a few sparks in the wranglers, as well, and a modified cattle prod that had been raised to pacify that bad-tempered Nightmare is lowered again.

And he was letting these petty, pathetic little nobodies push him around? Has he really fallen that low? Huh.

And if he happens to know that Astrid's big talk is just that, nothing but talk… She wasn't sent here to negotiate. She'll never ally her people with Drago, not with the way she dotes over that Nadder and handles her friends with patience and allows them their freedom without letting them run too wild, not if she's truly one of the powerhouses behind the strange blended world Eret saw on Berk.

…Well, no one's asking him, are they?

He doesn't owe Drago Bludvist anything more than what the warlord hired him to do. He's commissioned to hunt dragons. Not rat out Viking spies in over their pretty blonde heads.

* * *

His arm is hurting, perversely indifferent to the fact that it is not there. The pain creeps from long-dead fingers, coiling upwards through the muscles and sinking deep roots into his shoulder. He remembers raising it against the blast of fire that destroyed it, and if any man could relax the ghosts of tendons and sinews from the decades they have been tensed, frozen in that fire and now beyond his control, that man could name his reward.

Drago is not fool enough to believe that the pain is a sign. He does not believe in magic, and he does not need omens from some other realm to tell him that the little girl from Berk and her bedraggled retinue are not what they seem and less than what she claims them to be. It was a good story, well-told, and perhaps some of it was true. The little girl is the leader, certainly. The way the others look to her confirms that, even if any of them had enough mettle to rival her. And putting the fate of a people in the hands of a girl because she talks big is just the sort of sentimental foolishness Drago would believe of Stoick of Berk.

If there was some other realm, Drago would have long since found a path into it. If there are gods that guide the fates of men, let them burn for the chaos they have made of this world. If those gods were to find their homes and temples and shameless ever-quarreling families destroyed beneath the claws of dragons, perhaps they would admit the wrong they have done in allowing those beasts to infest the realms of men.

The great ship is his throne, and from one of his favored vantage points in the prow, Drago watches that little girl explore as she was bid. Her presence is disruptive, upsetting the well-ordered structure of his army. Already the commanders of two units have been forced to dismiss men from their work, left idle as those men stopped and stared at the bright girl as if she were a spirit.

Her words have left him suspicious, and the implications of them, even if they are lies, chafe at his temper.

Another army. Other dragon-tamers. They could destroy everything he has worked for.

Everywhere, dragons and humans war. Wherever men go in this world, dragons have already tried to take that place for their own, stealing what rightfully belongs to their betters and resisting every attempt to restore the proper order of the world.

It's not hard to convince people that dragons are nothing but beasts, and that he has the only answer, that only he is strong enough to not only overcome such a menace but break it to their will. With dragons serving him, he can bring more dragons under control. And when all the dragons answer to him, he will finally be able to make the world safe for its natural masters, no matter who or what he must lay to waste to achieve that triumphant, shining goal.

Control is a matter of strength, and such power cannot be shared. They would only come to blows, in the end, so it is cleaner to end such conflicts now.

His remaining hand, the one that doesn't hurt, finds the heavy chain leading from the bow of the ship to his secret weapon, waiting far below. Under control.

If there are other dragon-tamers on Berk, there must be another such monster to keep those dragons in line.

If he is going to wipe those upstarts out and take their forces for his own, perhaps it is first time to move on the outpost to the north of here. He knows it exists. Monster can sense it, and if Drago had not trained Monster so firmly to obey, the stupid beast might have already charged off all by himself to destroy it.

That is why humans are a higher order of being than overgrown reptiles. Because humans can plan. They can think. Dragons only react, feeding their bottomless bellies and destroying what they cannot devour. But what is meaningless to them may mean everything, if only they had the wit to see it.

So.

Drago catches the eye of the nearest soldier, one of thousands, and summons him with no more than a glance.

"Yes, sir?" the man asks, cringing.

"Watch them," Drago orders. "As many people as it takes. Nothing they say or do is to go unnoticed. I want to know everything.

"And," he adds as the man makes a half-bow more out of awe than design and prepares to carry out his orders, "keep them away from the stables, and the pit."

Their Monster must be back on Berk, and the army dragons are too broken to their chains to defy their human masters, much less Monster, but he does not yet know what these so-called dragon tamers are capable of. He will not have them try to steal his newest weapon from him. Although perhaps, when it is better trained and Drago has learned all he can from the Vikings…perhaps then they will receive the honor of meeting it. Briefly, one by one. Or together, so they can watch each other fall and know the true nature of the power Drago possesses, if only at the end.

People who believe themselves safe drop their guard. They talk. They spill secrets. They provide information, in casual comments and the things they remark on or do not notice. And with that information, and the reinforcements Monster will win him from that frozen refuge, the conquest of their barbarian little island will be easy.

Drago patrols his flagship, passing on the same orders while he inspects their resources, until every eye and ear on the ship is turned towards the newcomers. Even if half of what they say is nonsense, even nonsense can hide secrets.

He supervises the forging of a broad-bladed lance, and the retrieval of a shipment of supplies from a cargo ship, the items transferred in an overladen pannier suspended from a courier dragon. It drops off its load and lands beside it, waiting for judgment. Since nothing is broken, it is allowed to return to its home ship with nothing more than a halfhearted kick to speed it on its way. He avoids one of the Viking children ensconced at the railing, gaping at the rest of the fleet as if counting them.

To his satisfaction, no one comes to him with some tedious problem to be solved. His subordinates have learned not to bother their leader with minutia.

But against his will, he once again descends below decks. He knows where his feet are taking him, just as surely as he knows that he does not want to see that creature again.

And yet for all his disgust he finds himself unable to stop looking. When he had lost his arm he'd stared at the ruins of it in the same way, with a sort of sick fascination and disgusted disbelief that such a thing could occur.

An army functions on discipline, so there has been no need to post a guard on the door. Drago had simply let it be known that anyone who went near this room without permission, anyone who so much as touched the latch, would be punished.

Taking the lantern from its hook near the door, Drago goes in.

Many years ago, Drago had led his men – fewer of them then, and less well armed, but still a power to be reckoned with, forged in experience and every man true believers in the vendetta – against a flock of dragons. He would not remember this battle, one among many, had there not been a single uncanny moment when he had come face to face with one of the beasts, and its eyes had met his.

For a moment he could have sworn that there had been a person in there.

Disgusted and outraged, he had slain the beast when it hesitated to strike. He still has nightmares about it, not because of the death, but because of the traitorous thought that beasts could be like people. Because that would mean that humans would be no more than beasts.

The little figure in the corner of the cage is Drago's nightmare given flesh and a voice, an abomination even more gruesome than Monster.

It – Drago cannot bring himself to see it as anything but a creature – is sleeping again, curled up in a knot of tatty scales and trying to hide in a space from which there is no escape. In time it will resign itself to its fate, he is sure. Every dragon can be broken, and the dragon-creature is no threat, separated from its brash, beautiful Fury as it is.

The sight of it, even subdued and harmless, feels like poison in Drago's throat. He swallows that poison down and forces himself to look at the monster, the mixture in a single body of two things that should never have even occupied the same world. A dragon with a human face. Revolting.

If he did not know that dragons cannot make such plans, he might have suspected it of being some sort of infiltrator, a spy, able to go among humans and betray them from within. A stolen baby, snatched and trained in the camps of the enemy, a slave to its captors, a traitor to its own kind.

That's almost stupid enough to be something a dragon _might_ try, at that. If he believed they could do something like that, he'd believe that they would, even if this misbegotten thing is the best they can do.

A human so degraded by contact with dragons that it became no more than an animal, snarling and yelping and dashing itself to pieces against the bars, whimpering and helpless against human ingenuity. Something as simple as a box, and it gives up.

Well, the box is its future, now. Drago could kill it with a single blow, even if he let it out of the cage and gave it back its little knife and its make-believe claws. But what a terrible waste that would be.

Drago could put this cage on a cart and wheel this creature into any backwater town, any frost-damned barbarian settlement, any of the great cities far to the south, any place in any corner of the world, and he would have grateful people racing to join him, desperate to follow anyone who could spare their children a similar fate. Sometimes he encounters people who just don't understand the threat that dragons pose, the corruption they bring with them, who insist on denying the demon at their door.

But if they saw this, all he would have to say is, "Look. This is what sharing a world with dragons does to us. Look at this creature. Dragons made him no more than a beast. If we don't fight back, this is what we'll become."

Let it snarl and howl and claw at the people who will stare and tremble and turn to the man who can save them. Those people will be begging him to lead them. Every garbled sound from its throat will only prove what Drago learned so sharply: when dragons are allowed to gain too much power, only grief can be the result.

His missing arm burns.

He already has one Monster at his heels, an obedient attack dog beyond anything the world has ever seen. With Monster, every dragon they encounter submits to his rule in the end.

Such a small monster, this one, and yet with it he will not even have to wage war against humans to bring them under his command.

And then Drago will be able to set to rights all the things those vanished gods got wrong.

"Goodbye, monster," he says to his creature, smiling the first real smile he has been able to manage with the sight of it before him. If it is so insistent on being a dragon, then let it be a dragon.

Drago knows how to deal with dragons, and where they belong: forcefully, and in the service of the real people whose world this is.

For now, he forces himself to turn away and leave the dragon-creature to its cage. Let darkness and isolation and confinement wear it down. Drago has a legendary dragon to break, and spies to deceive, and an army to reinforce, and an upstart rival to defeat, but once all that is done, he'll come back. And then he and this monster will do great things.

If it's very, very lucky, and it does all he commands it to, and Drago happens to be in a good mood at the time, he might even let it see its beloved Fury for a few moments. From a distance, of course.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	10. Chapter 10

_**Stormfall,**_ **Part Ten**

Hiccup listens to the heavy footsteps of the Knotted Man retreating into the distance, fading as they go, and only when he cannot hear more of them does he trust that it is safe for him to stop his very best pretending.

For all his fear he lets his jaw gape in a dragon's smile, pleased to have fooled the Knotted Man so well. He is frightened and trapped just as he had shown, but he cannot sleep any more, not alone.

He has shown the Knotted Man _broken_ , but Hiccup is fighting back.

The Knotted Man took his sharp-claw blades from him, tore his claws away, but he did not think so far as to search through the dragon-man's pockets that are small holding-things, kept warm and safe next to his soft-skin. When he uncoils from his pretend sleeping his movements uncover again an old and broken claw from his gauntlets, like the one he would have replaced on the empty island if there was another one to put in its place. But he chose instead to tie that loose claw more tightly, and this is one he did not toss aside when it tore away.

His claws have never sharpened well. They are dead claws, broken from the paws of other dragons and given life again, but it is a make-believe life, and when the sharpness of them wears away they do not grow back as Toothless' claws do. This Hiccup knows well, but still he is trying.

Dragons sharpen their claws by chewing on them, or by scratching them against stone or the thick heart of a tree. There are no trees or stones here, but there is very much metal that is stronger than claws.

It is only a single claw, but having even only a single claw helps. The dead claw was part of him once, so it can be again.

It is a claw he can raise against the fear that circles him like sharks, the fear that hisses _**alone alone alone alone alone alone**_ endlessly, mocking and cruel, nipping at bleeding wounds so that they do not heal. With that claw he slashes out at the silent voices, driving them away to sulk and whisper malice. He cannot hear their mutterings, but he knows that they are there.

They do not need to open that wound with new bites. It is a wound that will never heal, not until _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ are together again. When he sets his bare paws to the ground beneath the bars of the cage, he is not surprised to find that it is damp. Strength ebbs from him like blood, so that his head spins with the sick-making, tired-making feeling of bleeding too much. His scales are unmarked, soft-skin not torn except beneath the blood matted into his fur, but he expects the ground beneath him to be stained with his lifeblood, dripping from the heart that has been torn out of him.

There is no blood, only the memory of it, and the imagining. The damp is from the other man, the Water Throwing Man, who had brought strange _pfikingr_ food and a holding-thing of water to drink, and another holding-thing of water that was seawater. The seawater the other man had thrown across the ground of the cage, washing it all at once.

It had not been a kindness. Most of the water had been thrown at _(click)-phuh_ , and he had leaped away as far as he could until brought up short by the bars of the cage, hissing.

The man had spat at him, and retreated.

As soon as Hiccup lowers the single claw, the overpowering anxiety of separation pounces at him again, and he staggers. If he had been standing upright on his back paws he would have fallen; crouched to the ground as he is, he lowers his head and mewls _despair_ in an all-but-silent wail. Unthinking he presses his nose to his paws, but they are bare _human_ paws still and instead he twists away and hides his nose instead in the smooth scales of a foreleg, wishing that it was the living warmth of Toothless' skin against his and not the cooler scales of his scale-skins.

Hiccup is starving for touch. Dragons are social, friendly, physical, and he and Toothless communicate as much by touch as by sound. When they purr to each other they purr together, sides pressed close. There is no safer place for the smaller dragon than nestled beside his heart-beloved Toothless, curled into the space under his jaw or sprawled on his back between Toothless' foreleg and his ribs, telling stories and making shapes from imagining and the movements of his paws in the air for both to see, or tracing the lines of many-many old scars with a soft-claw or a nose, or just petting in rhythm with their breathing. Touch is as essential to him as water and warmth.

He trembles with the isolation of it, as if all his senses are fading and touch fleeing from him, shuffling and sidling away.

He wants to lie down and shatter, and he wants to tear through the metal and fly.

He wants to be a _big_ dragon, big enough to strike this cage and crush it, strong enough to burn away the walls of the ship all around, fierce enough to fight his way through everything set against him. If he were a bigger dragon and not this hatchling-small half of himself only they would not have been so easily caught.

If he could fly truly –

If he could breathe his own fires –

If he were a _proper dragon_ and not what he is –

The voices in the shadows that he understands although he cannot hear their sounds and cannot see their signals laugh at him. They jeer at him as make-believe, pretending, not-real, as laughable as a hatchling pretending to be the king and commanding his clutch-mates to run here and stop there and follow all around as he stalks under the paws of tolerant adults until the hatchling slips and falls from the edge of a stone coated with slippery lichen, and then all his clutch-mates scream laughter.

 _No!_ Hiccup roars at the shadows, closing his eyes to them and swiping at the voices. In the darkness behind his eyes – and it is _his_ darkness, where he is in charge, where he can make things that are not-yet and see things that are invisible – he makes the _human_ paw a dragon's, true and with no pretending, no clever ties holding it together and claws that grew there, claws that live.

With his eyes closed he makes himself a dragon, seeing himself as if he saw from the eyes of Toothless- _beloved_ or Cloudjumper-mother's-mate, looking at this half of himself as he _should_ be.

 _That_ is the truth, and the voices are liars. The voices cannot even show their faces, they can only hide in the darkness and tell stupid lies. The voices have no flock that love them as his flock loves _(click)-phuh_ who is half of the two-who-are-one who are the best of dragons, daring wanderers and fierce fighters and cunning hunters and clever storytellers so that the longest nights of the coldest winters are not so long and not so cold because their cousins fill the cave _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ choose to tell their stories in and purr all together.

The voices have only slinking around and deceiving, and no flock would accept those that lie so much. They could never be trusted.

Hiccup will not lie down and be broken. He will get out of this cage, and he will find Toothless again.

So he breathes, and he keeps breathing, and refuses to be afraid. It is like hunting, a bit. Hunting is about patience and stalking and careful thinking as much as it is about striking quickly with claws or fangs or fires. He can hunt an idea. He is hunting out-of-this-trap.

Steadying himself, Hiccup ignores the voices by sorting through the other things he has kept in his pockets, searching for something that might be useful.

He savors the feeling of the scales he collected back on the empty island, although he cannot see their bright pretty colors in the faint light that leaks in from the space beyond. He occupies himself for many heartbeats by untangling the knot of string he carries with him everywhere, sorting one thread from another until he can pull on one of them and have it slither out from the rest neatly. There is a small piece of black-ice stone that was sharp when he found it but has since gone dull as the edge broke away. He considers sharpening it too, but it does not appeal to him the way his last remaining claw does. The claw is splintering a bit, worn out already, but he knows claws. He does not know sharp stone. There is a short length of leather cord that he was going to use to make some change or another to the flying-with. He cannot remember what it was, though, and it is not important now.

But it is not until his paws find a tangle of _kkkn-ffsss_ like a small piece of ship-tree leaf that he thinks of a good idea.

The fabric itself is not a good tool, but the sharp-thorns it holds, thick and sharp and sturdy to dig through leather and make clever ties could be useful.

Sharp-thorns break easily, and they are even harder to sharpen than dead claws, but Hiccup does not need them to be sharp.

Hiccup has been a trap-breaker since he was very small. He does not remember his mother teaching him to take apart the mechanisms that make traps work, or showing him how one piece affects another, but he absorbed readily the idea that such things could be _understood_ , with trying. He forgot that they had had a mother, for she had been Toothless' mother as well. He forgot that their war was first hers. But he did not forget that knowing how things work is the best way to figure out how they will break.

Every trap he has taken apart has taught him something. When a trap comes apart sometimes there are many little pieces that fall out, like a prey-beast with its body slashed open, and while bits of traps are not good to eat, they are very good to play with.

He and Toothless have played many games with the small pieces of dead traps. Often these are chasing-games, pouncing on shining pieces that fly around in the grass or buried in the snow to find, or catching-games, competing to snatch a bright piece of metal from Toothless' jaws or Hiccup's paws.

But Hiccup knows that the weak point of a cage – every trap has a weak point – is the latch and the lock.

Pieces of locks are good to play with, especially in the long winter nights when there is nothing else to do but sleep and tell stories and purr and sleep more and be hungry and snarl and squabble and sleep again. Getting them to click and move is like putting a stick into a snake's nest, poking at it just right to make it come out and play, only better, because locks do not hiss and try to bite when they are investigated.

He cannot see what is inside a lock, but things that cannot be seen are still real.

Closing his eyes again, Hiccup remembers. As he pulls the sharp-thorns from their fabric nest, and sidles up to the bars and reaches through them to stab them into the lock like the tiniest of claws, he remembers the nest.

If he does not look, he could be home again. Toothless could be at his back, only a breath away, purring _amusement_ and _laughter_ as Hiccup clicks _frustration_ at a lock-toy that is fighting back. It would be all right that he does not have his claws, because a game like this can only be played by careful, patient, clever paws.

If he does not look, somewhere close by Cloudjumper is watching over them, alert for some new mischief that his hatchlings are planning to wake everyone up from their winter dozing, his wariness always more protectiveness than irritation. The sound of water far away is the waves beating against the stone of their island, shielded by the ice of the king. The cold is only winter, and nearby there are other dragons, their own flock. Too many to name, and all of them family.

If he does not look, the voices are only the sounds of other dragons in the distance, quarreling over nothing at all, taking out on each other the frustration of hunger and never flying because of the cold of the storms. The silence where the voices are not is only the winter-sleeping of all his cousins, curled up and dozing, waiting out the winter.

If he does not look, this is only a game, and when he plays the game well and makes it work Toothless- _self_ – behind him, behind him, behind him – and all the flock will be pleased to see the magic that his clever paws can do.

Hiccup wants to go home so desperately he can taste the scent of the caves and the open meadow and the thick-familiar claiming-scent of the flock in his throat. He would give up wandering forever, if only he could be with Toothless and home again.

A surge of loneliness rattles him, and he sets his head against the bars, whimpering. The presence at his back is only pretending, a memory, empty and hollow and cold.

But his paws stay steady. They move no further, testing each part of the hidden pieces inside, and do not waver.

He must be careful, and patient, and his paws must be very clever. There are better ways to snarl in the face of the Knotted Man than slashing at him with claws.

He has not forgotten the other dragons, flock-cousins and briefly rescued strangers and the others bound and broken here. But _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ cannot free others when they are themselves bound.

If the Knotted Man wants Hiccup in a cage, and he wants Toothless all to himself, then Hiccup will defy him by taking those things away from him, just as the Knotted Man has taken his claws and his beloved-self and his freedom. He will take all those things _back_.

* * *

The slash of claws across his flank hurts, and Toothless spins, roaring. He wraps his wings in tight to protect them, flinching at the still-raw burned skin, and meets his attacker's claws with his fangs, drawing blood from a swift bite. The bigger dragon does not retreat even when Toothless snarls _back away!_ Instead she raises her unbitten paw for another strike, and Toothless flicks his fangs in and out, looking with clear meaning at that paw, warning that if she claws him again he will bite that one too.

Instead a weight hits him from behind, tearing into an ear-flap and making Toothless recoil, squealing. Turning on his other attacker hurts as fangs drag through tender flesh, and the blasting-fire he aims at the more heavy-set dragon-enemy misses and dies against one of the metal trees that fill this place.

The heat and flash of it makes the biting dragon retreat a bit, though, and Toothless leaps forward to escape them, putting a metal tree between the others and himself even as they snarl and move to pursue.

Toothless wants to roar a challenge, scream threats, warn them that he is dangerous and angry, but his voice becomes a whimper of _enough no-more no-fight no-fight you win enough!_ His ear-flaps go down as he crouches submissively, asking them to stop.

He does not understand _why_ they are fighting. He does not know these dragons. He did not know the ones before them, the many others that have attacked him without reason, without rest, since he was brought here, helpless under many tangle-nets and wailing for his Hiccup- _beloved-one_ , torn stunned and unmoving from Toothless' side. They are not fighting over food, and he knows by the smell of it that this is not their nest – it smells of fear and blood and the sand that coats the ground and the metal of the trees and all around. It smells of dragons, so many dragons that his nose feels tangled trying to scent them all, enough dragons for a nest, but not dragons at peace in a safe place. It smells only like _angry_ and like pain.

He does not understand how he has wronged these dragons, so that they should attack him so fiercely, and they will not tell him why. They will not speak to him at all, signaling only _attack_ and _hurt_ and _anger_ and _hunt_.

His enemies stalk towards him, hissing, wings hackling, teeth bared, tails lashing with the urge to pounce, and Toothless retreats, stumbling backward. He does not want to fight anymore, but they will not listen!

If he rolls over and submits Toothless fears that they will leap at that exposed and defenseless belly where scales are softer, tearing into him like prey. He cannot surrender, so instead he must continue to fight, and he lashes his own tail angrily.

A scraping sound behind him makes him startle, and as he leaps away he sees that there is _another_ dragon, as hostile as the others, that he did not know was there, that had leapt for his tailfins and missed because of that sudden movement. Wailing distress, Toothless puts his tail to all of them and runs, as far away as he can, dodging between metal trees and kicking sand up behind him as he flees. Even the space above is hemmed in by patched-together metal, indifferent to dragon flames and with no good places to hold and hang from, but it is not high enough to fly.

There are many dark caves in the walls, but the black dragon cannot hide there. Except for one hidden behind his enemies, all the caves have metal nets across their mouths, and behind the nets Toothless thinks there are other dragons. He can smell their scents all tangled up with each other and with blood and fear. But the holes in the nets are too small even to put his paw through, and the dragons beyond make no sound, no whimper or snarl or purr.

Instead he hides behind a tree as far away as he can and trembles, licking at the scrapes across his flank.

When he looks up again, searching for his enemies, they have turned away from the chase and retreated. As quickly as they attacked, now they are retreating, losing interest in hunting frightened Toothless and instead settling down in the sand as far away from the black dragon as they can get.

They lick their own wounds, not each other's, and they make no sound.

Toothless is very confused. And he is tired, because he can only doze in small bites before his enemies decide to hunt him again. He is hurting from many such meaningless fights, and he is hungry. There was a human in reeking metal armor that brought dead fish and poured them out in the sand, but when Toothless tried to hunt them he managed only a few bites before angry dragons – not these dragons, but other ones – attacked him and drove him away and ate the fish for themselves. When they were all busy with eating Toothless had snuck in close and taken a big leap in amongst them, snatching fish even from the jaws of others as well as those left still uneaten, and raced away gulping them down until the angry dragons caught him.

It is always bright, here in this metal cave with strange trees like stone teeth that bite up and down until they meet and melt together. There are stone teeth like that surrounding their own home nest, the place that is special and for _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ alone because they have shaped it like them with all their resting there, where they sleep and purr together and where all of Hiccup's colors and making-things are kept unless those things are stolen by playful flock-mates.

There is no sun here, no open sky, no stars, no restful darkness, no pulse of tides. Toothless hates it. He hates the dragons that attack him and will not stop until they are replaced by other dragons that fight him even though Toothless does not know what he has done to give offense. He hates the movements of humans and the shifting of the ground beneath him like waves, and the grinding of metal that he can feel through his paws when he digs in through the sand until his claws scrape against metal and he pulls back, whimpering.

He hates especially the Knotted Man, who has come to stand beyond the bullies – Toothless understands very well the idea of a bully, dragons can be cruel as readily as they can be kind – and watch as Toothless licks his wounds and puffs with tiredness. The Knotted Man has his heavy-striking stick with him, and Toothless pulls one paw back against his chest protectively, watching him warily and remembering the bruise.

Toothless' tail is to the wall of the metal cave, and his enemy is in view, and there is no one else in this space, but still he feels as if there is someone behind him. It is as if there is a dragon at his shoulder, leaning over him, with its claws pressed to the open wound between his shoulders.

It aches like a gash, that absence. It gapes like the jaws of a broken skull. It is cold, so cold. Toothless never imagined that his shoulders could be so cold. It is as if all the scales have been peeled away to leave vulnerable flesh with the muscles and blood in him all exposed, and the spine below open to the single bite that kills anything.

 _ **submit,**_ the silence and emptiness urge him, the weight of it nearly forcing Toothless to the sand to roll and show his belly.

He is so tired. The silence is not a real voice, but it is hard to hear real things like the clicking of the Knotted Man's stick as he taps it against the walls of the metal cave, or even Toothless' own breathing as he gasps for air in the brief pause, sides heaving with great gulps. It is like his senses are full of snow, like he is in the water and sinking.

 _ **why?**_ the silence asks. It is a tired silence, and it heaves a great sigh. Toothless staggers under it even though it is not real.

If his Hiccup-beloved-self was here as he should be, he would be able to feel Hiccup shift with him, moving to keep his balance as the black dragon moves. If they were flying and Toothless stumbled in that way in the air, his dearest one would shift the other way, bringing them back into balance with his smaller body placed just right.

They belong together, not kept apart like this.

Toothless misses Hiccup so sharply there is no sound for it, not even as dragons say things, all emotion and passion. There is no howl that would hurt enough to say how much he hurts, no scream loud enough and shrill enough, and only his silence and shaking and thinking can say it.

Even if he could sleep, if there were no bullies lurking, waiting to pounce, even if the Knotted Man was far away and maybe bitten all open and cast aside as rotted inside and not-to-eat, how could he sleep without his Hiccup- _soul-love_ with him? How could he rest knowing that Hiccup was somewhere else? How could he dream peacefully without the warmth of his smaller self nestled against his heart?

More than the fear of being pounced on or the pain of marks from claws and fangs or the burn across the stretch of one wing or the pull of muscles where Toothless wrenched his tail out of grasping claws, it is this nightmare that has kept him awake and on edge, but the edge of his alertness is blunting as claws do when they scrape against unyielding stone.

A shout from across the space makes Toothless raise his head from his exhausted slump, looking for the sound. The Knotted Man is shouting to the bullies, commanding them to walk with him as he strides across the sand towards Toothless, and they obey silently, their muted signals showing their disinterest.

Toothless growls as the human Alpha comes closer, warning him as he would a dragon, saying _go-away me angry scared fierce fighting angry danger danger danger go-away you you you angry me!_

The Knotted Man laughs a human laugh at his defiance, and gestures with his striking stick _you down!_

Toothless will not obey. He does not answer to the Knotted Man.

 _I strike!_ the Knotted Man threatens, waving his stick to say so.

Toothless opens his jaw and summons up his fires, daring the Knotted Man to do so before Toothless turns him into ashes too filthy even to be kicked and dug all over as a nest.

Growling, the Knotted Man gestures with his stick, but Toothless does not understand the command.

The command is not for him. All of the dragons that followed the Knotted Man leap at Toothless, wrestling him to the ground, and there are too many of them and too heavy to fight off. They pin him there and weigh him down, but Toothless makes them hurt for it, writhing and struggling and feeling his claws tear through scales many times until the Knotted Man's stick whips down across his paw.

It is the _other_ paw, but it hurts just as much.

Toothless was angry before, upset and fuming at the meaningless, endless attacks. But it is nothing before his wrath as the Knotted Man steps in close, protected by his bullies, and puts a paw on the flying-with to pull it off and away.

Toothless' vision goes white with rage beyond speaking, beyond screaming, beyond any gesture but the frenzy of battle as he writhes and howls and lashes out at everything, burning inside and flaming blindly, mad enough to chew through metal and blast through stone, shrieking loud enough to frighten away the high-soaring stars.

The flying-with is _HIS!_

It is more than important to him. It _matters_. It is a making he and Hiccup did together, a game they could play just for them, a special thing for only them because they are two-who-are-one. The playing was in trying different ideas and finding what worked and what did not, what would break under the stresses they put it to and what would hold firm, what would pinch against Toothless' scales and what would hold Hiccup tightest so they did not have to be careful at all _at all at all_ in the air.

The bond between them is a thing real but not seen, but the flying-with is part of it, and it is a _violation_ to have the paws of the Knotted Man on it.

That fury cuts through the tiredness like claws through bloody flesh, and Toothless tears away from the bullies pinning him and the encroaching paw, squirming away and diving through the smallest gap between one of the bullies and the metal wall. There is no grip above for his claws but he uses it to launch from, springing from it as he would from solid ground uncaring that he is upside-down.

Being upside-down is nothing, it is only flying with more falling about it.

Wide awake again, Toothless paces and screams _hatred defiance refusal defiance disgust hatred no no no no no no no_ , threatening terrible things if the Knotted Man tries anything like that again.

The bullies leave their master's side to herd _Tt-th-ss_ again, and Toothless grimly returns to the meaningless, stupid battle, holding them at bay with swift leaps and sharp bites, alert always for the presence of the Knotted Man.

 _ **tiresome,**_ the presence behind his shoulders, not-there claws curling over the emptiness between them, sighs, and with it comes a wave of such exhaustion that all of Toothless' newfound outrage drips away like water from a stone.

 _ **listen**_ **,** it commands, but Toothless does not want to listen. He sings a keening song of defiance and shrieks until the metal of the trees hum back to him.

Still the fight goes on, and does not end. When Toothless marks one of the bullies so deeply she cannot fight anymore, the Knotted Man takes her away out of the metal cave and brings a new dragon in, this one rested and fierce and unmarked by Toothless' claws although he has many old scars and is clever and wary.

There is no more food, and there are many more fighters, until they all blur together, faceless and voiceless, without signals or colors or anything that makes them themselves and not another one.

Every time Toothless has a chance to rest, he struggles harder to escape from the tempting blankness that waits for him when he drops his guard. The presence always at his shoulder – it is always at his shoulder, even when he turns on it suddenly, snapping at the empty air to chase it away – urges him to give up, to rest, to submit, to obey.

It is so loud now.

It tells him that if he stops fighting he can sleep. If he stops fighting all will be well. If he stops fighting then he will not be hurt anymore. It tells him to trust it.

Toothless does not trust it.

But he is so tired.

In time he realizes that he has not been fighting for a very long while, that he is standing still and no one is pouncing at him, and that is how it should be. Somewhere very far away there is a loud voice. Somewhere very far away his sides hurt, and his wings. Somewhere very far away there are bright lights.

Somewhere very close by there is a weight on him, but inside, and it holds him quiet and still. There is nothing to fight, nothing to bite, nothing to burn, and Toothless cannot summon up the effort shaking that heaviness from him would require. It sounds like very hard work, and not worth it.

Somewhere very far away there is a touch on his nose, but his head is very heavy and he does not have the will to draw it back. When it pushes down it is as if…someone, he knows they were someone heavy and someone familiar and someone he…cared about, but he cannot remember what they looked like or sounded like or if they had a name-sound of their own…is sitting on his nose.

It seems easiest to lower his head to the sand, and then all of his body goes with it, collapsing in tiredness.

 _ **good,**_ the presence at his shoulder says, rolling waves of approval through him. _**up now.**_

Toothless stands up again and waits, eyes drooping, exhausted. Very far away he feels unfamiliar rough touches on him, stripping something away, and sees a dark figure holding something light and tangled and mysterious before setting it aside.

He thinks he should probably care about that, but it is very far away.

Something wraps around his neck, which is a strange feeling – he thinks it should be around his back and chest, but he cannot remember why.

When the dark figure stands close beside him, just off his shoulder so that he cannot turn to bite or raise a paw to slash, so that the presence is flanking him on one side and the dark figure on the other, Toothless whines uncertainly. There is a bad smell about the dark figure, like old death. He is edgy at having the dark figure so close. He knows there is supposed to be someone this close to him, but this is the wrong one.

But when the dark figure pulls on the thing around his neck, Toothless follows so the pull of it does not hurt, and when the dark figure leads him to a place that is enclosed and all shadows he goes willingly.

 _ **better,**_ the presence says when the dark figure has gone away. _**fierce. obey.**_

 _ **rest,**_ it commands, and Toothless cannot find it in himself to resist.

He has been so lonely, and it is comforting to have company.

* * *

The sharp-thorns are bent very much and their sharpness is all blunted away against the metal of the lock when Hiccup carefully, carefully, pushes on one very slightly and twists with the other where it has a grip into a crack between small pieces – he cannot see it, but he is imagining it real – and at last the metal makes a _click!_ sound like claws against stone.

When he frees a paw to pull on the lock, testing, hoping that this time it has worked, that the sound is not deceiving as it was before and before again, this time the lock opens. When Hiccup reaches out to lift the latch, the side of the cage swings open from his leaning on it.

And the dragon-feral is free.

Dropping the sharp-thorns and forgetting them at once, Hiccup tumbles from the trap of the cage, moving in triumphant bounds and swoops that take him all around the larger space in an exuberant, celebratory dragon-dance. Toothless should be here to dance it with him, but he sings to himself in the smallest of voices _happy happy happy happy proud relieved proud good good good look-at-me good look yes yes yes happy!_

There are many dangerous enemies still nearby but the exhilaration of being free of the cage is physical, tearing through his body and leaving him light-headed and mad with delight. He races around, brushing his shoulders against the wood of the ship to find the new shape of things, leaping and pawing at the top of the cave above as he would swat at a low-flying bird, clawing and spitting at the broken-open cage before dancing away laughing mockingly at its defeat.

He is still enclosed in a space where he does not belong, a cave not his own, and he is still alone, still in the domain of the Knotted Man, but still he yips _triumph!_ very softly.

The cage was like a narrow crevasse where there was no space to turn or flow of air to scent the way out. It is better to be in an open cavern where there is open air and space to run – and run he does, savoring the freedom to stretch and leap and roll and spin without the feeling of metal beneath his back and shoulders. He tears the piece of the lock that moves from the latch of the cage and tosses it so it skitters and thumps across the wood of the ship-ground, and at once pounces after it, chasing it like a quick fish through shallow water and pinning it like a leaf.

Shaking all over with delight now instead of fear, Hiccup laughs at the broken piece and tosses it again, losing himself briefly in the game.

Finally he misjudges a leap and lands wrong from his pounce, twisting and scrambling and tumbling out of his fall so that he is crouched on the ground of the ship as Toothless roosts, back legs drawn up under him and front paws stretched out in front, stomach close to the ground. There he pants and laughs in small sounds and comes back to himself.

Hiccup has no plan other than getting out of the cage and finding Toothless and both of them escaping together, away from the Knotted Man and his madness inside. Trapped, he could think of nothing but the problem all around him, but now he pats at the broken lock and begins to think again.

He does not know what lies outside this cave in the belly of the ship, except that the Knotted Man is there somewhere, and there are many other humans, and there are dragons that cannot be trusted. But what it _looks_ like, he does not know, and with that thought he grows uneasy again.

What is he to do now?

The ship is not a friendly place for dragons at all, so he must tread carefully and stay hidden. The dragon-man is defenseless except for a single splintering claw, and if he is hunted by many humans he knows he will not be able to escape them.

If they capture him again they will put him in a stronger cage and guard him, watching to be sure he does not escape. The Knotted Man would hurt _Tt-th-ss_ to hurt _(click)-phuh_ , he knows. So he must not be caught.

But this cave is not a good place for hiding in, and he can only guess that the rest of the ship must be like it. The shape of it is terribly wrong, to his eyes, accustomed as he is to the wild. There is nothing to climb on, nothing to hide behind, nothing to jump from – it is not a very good cave at all.

He cannot rely on the darkness to hide him. The sun could be anywhere in its long flight, and the humans carry tame fires. He can be silent in his moving, but then he cannot call out to Toothless and listen for his beloved's voice in reply.

Toothless, he knows, must be trapped somewhere, because only a terrible trap could have kept Toothless from coming to rescue him. They are their mother's children, trap-breakers both.

All the joy of escaping drains away from him as he considers hiding, and hunting, and blending in. Dragons with bright scales do not try to sneak through snow. When they hide among trees they do not betray their presence with bright fires. When they creep up to the prey-beasts with horns that run all together, they do not put their heads up and wave their wings and announce that they are a dragon here.

In hiding-games, it is good to hide in strange places where dragons do not go, but it is clever also to hide among other dragons, so that the searching one does not see the hiding one for the many others all around.

But he cannot trust these dragons that bow their heads to the Knotted Man and go where he commands because he is their Alpha, and in many adventures _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ have found that they cannot walk among strangers unnoticed. They are too unusual. There are no other dragons like _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_.

This is a place of humans, and there are no dragons for Hiccup to hide among.

There is an idea Hiccup does not want to look at, nipping at his tail. He turns his eyes away from it, and grimaces, licking the taste of its scent away from his jaws.

It is a hateful thing to imagine, but he cannot think of anything else.

He _must_ find Toothless. Alone he is broken, and only when they are together again will their wounds be healed.

But it is a deep, deep wound to carve into his own flesh, to imagine such a thing.

Hiccup has spent his entire life making himself into a dragon. He did not know he was doing it, for most of the time, and he does not do it deliberately now. It is just the way he is. He was only trying to be like his flock-mates, to be part of the only family he remembered, to belong to the only home he knew, to be one of the people he understood. He did not know that he was different, and in everything he is, he is a dragon.

He would rather tear his own skin from his body than be seen as other than a dragon, because to be a dragon is everything he has settled his life on. But to be without Toothless is to be without his heart.

This is a place of humans, and if he cannot hide among dragons, perhaps he can hide among humans. If he can make the humans of the ship believe that they see a human, not a dragon, perhaps they will not cry out and rouse all their human flock-mates against the intruder.

To be seen as _human!_ It is a blow at all the paws he stands on, the solid stone that should be beneath him. It tears holes in the wings that carry him on the back of the wind.

Hiccup still fears that there is a monster hidden inside him, sleeping its own long winter-sleeps, and he does not want it to ever wake. that monster is the nightmare of all the _pfikingr_ enemies he has ever fled from, and he keeps it sleeping by being a dragon as much as possible, denying that monster to starve it into submission. The clever things he can do with his paws he reasons are good to be able to do, because those things protect him and his Toothless- _heart's-love_ and their family, and they are things of dragons because he is doing them, and they are things that dragons _would_ do if their paws were clever too.

Knowing that there are humans in the world who can learn to be friendly to dragons has not destroyed his fear of them.

He does not argue with what he had been before. He knows he was born human, that his mother was human. But it does not matter – he is a dragon now. He chose always to be a dragon. He chose from the beginning, accepting his place in the nest as any hatchling does, because the hatchling knows nothing else. He chose again with eyes open, as an adult.

It tastes like betrayal, this thought. To make himself seem human now tastes like turning away from everyone who has ever loved him as one of their own. To pretend would be to deny everyone who raised him, because the flock raised him to be a dragon, and his loyalty is to the flock. They did not send him away just because he was small and looked different, they kept him and let him be one of them because he was happy there, because he belongs.

He thinks of what he must do, to hide under the nose of the Knotted Man, in the blind spot of an Alpha, and trembles. He wants to throw up the idea as if it were bad not-food, sick it out of him and kick it away as not-to-eat. The cage was humiliating and terrifying, but this idea is _vile_.

But he will not find Toothless again by hiding in this cave, and he cannot move about the ship freely as a dragon.

He must pretend. But it will only be a storytelling-pretending, and not real. He does not become an eel when he pretends to be many eels for a storytelling, or a snowstorm when he shows his flock-mates the blizzard that ambushed them once, or a fire-spinning cousin when he spins all around and makes the sounds that those cousins made.

There are many humans, so maybe they will not notice him if he pretends very well and stays away from looking at them and does not try to make their sounds. He can hide his scales and his wings and move as they do, for a time, because humans do not track by scent. They only track by seeing and by sounds.

If that is what it takes to get him back to Toothless, to sneak them both out of this trap, Hiccup decides, then that is what he will do.

He will do anything. So he will pretend.

For a time he pretends with no one watching, remembering how humans move and imitating them with his body. Humans lurch, to Hiccup's eyes. They stagger. They make a target of themselves, standing on their back paws and baring their stomachs and throats to a paw-swipe or a leap. There is no leaping in them, and no balance, as if they are walking in the middle of an open meadow with nothing to leap to or lean from.

Hiccup only walks on his back feet when he has to, when he is holding something in his front paws or where there is nothing to climb to. He has retained the ability to run at his own full speed for short distances, because it is useful for chasing after prey or playing with friends, or for racing with Toothless. He has never beaten Toothless in a race, but he enjoys the speed of it, so he never lost that skill, which he thinks of as being faster than the falling.

When he is slower than the falling, falling catches him and it is easier to fall. But in the half-darkness, pacing around the opened cage, the dragon-man tries.

He replaces the lock on the cage, too, snapping it shut and tugging on it to make sure that it has caught again, and reclaims the broken sharp-thorns to hide.

Let the Knotted Man wonder, to find the broken little dragon flown.

* * *

Hiccup lurks on the edge of the light, listening for human footsteps and voices and watching for their shadows, and only when he cannot sense any human nearby does he venture into the rest of the ship.

Ships have tunnels inside, he discovers, and their lights are from tame fires, not the sun. They are all over wood and metal, and they smell of humans and seawater and the sticky pitch that is like the sap that bleeds from trees.

Stepping carefully, Hiccup stays alert for the humans he knows roam these tunnels, keeping his broken claw ready to use if he must. He does not wish to fight with humans, not trapped as he is in their territory, but he will not let them put him in a cage again.

Hiccup is done with cages.

His scales and wings and fin will give him away no matter how well he pretends to move the way humans do, so he knows that if he is seen clearly at all he will be caught. So once, and again, he hears voices or sees shadows and turns away, trying another darker corner and another quieter tunnel. He learns quickly how to open the latches that reveal other caves, and does so, exploring.

In this way he finds a cave that he dares not enter because he can hear many human voices inside it, with many bright fires, even though it smells very interesting of things that might be good to eat. The harsh laughter and many voices talking all at once from within make him hackle, angry that they should be pleased with themselves and their flock-mates. Do they not care that their Alpha is a monster, that they follow a leader that foams at the mind? Is the madness in all of them, that they should enjoy themselves so while Hiccup's people – while dragons – suffer under their Alpha's rule?

But it is hard to care about humans, when he does not have Toothless to talk to and think with. If they were together they would growl and hiss and snarl among themselves, wondering and making silly plans for daring pranks like diving into the cave of humans and scaring them so that _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ could snap up and run away with the things that smell so good.

There is no joy in exploring alone, only fear and shaking and startling at small sounds.

A cave with many holding-things, wrapped up under tangle-nets and with many locks, feels safer, but Toothless is not there, so none of them are of interest. There is a small cave that stinks of mess even from far away, and this he does not go near.

He likes the cave with many pictures on the walls of the cave, drawn onto paper and pinned there so that they could be taken down again. The scale they are drawn on is too wide for him to recognize them as maps, though – pictures of places he understands, but not of oceans this big. Instead he reaches out to touch the fine lines and smooth curls and bright colors, marveling at how clean they are and that the colors do not brush away at a touch. He wishes he could tear them from the walls and crumple them up small to hide and take with him to show Toothless when they are together again. Toothless likes bright colors and drawings too.

He does not linger there, though. His spine prickles under the imagined eyes of many humans, and he shudders beneath his scales. He is tired of moving as humans do; it does not come naturally to him.

As he explores another tunnel, though, he hears human voices approaching. When he turns to retreat, he hears also the movement of the metal humans wear from that direction as well, and he tenses, thrumming in the back of his throat in agitation, caught between the knowledge that he is cornered and the urge to fight to escape.

But there is an opening into another cave nearby, and there is no light or sound from within it. Hiccup makes a scrambling leap for this refuge, forgetting his pretending beneath the need to hide, and pushes it closed again before either group of humans sees more than his shadow.

The reek of the space hits him first, and long-embedded instincts make him spring away and cower, because it is a stink he recognizes. It stinks of human fighters, of the furs and cloths and metal they wear.

He was taught to avoid this stink when he was smaller just like every other hatchling, learning to recognize the scent from stolen human things, and the memories of many lessons of _bad this danger fly fly avoid danger no no no bad-stink!_ are strong.

Hiccup understands the space, though, even as his eyes adjust to the dark of a space with no tame fires. It is a human nest. It has ledges for humans to sleep on, and things that they wear, and maybe things that they play with, and weapons.

It stinks of humans because there are humans in the nests, and all of the dragon-man's instincts yowl at him to flee.

But the humans are sleeping – he can tell this from the heavy breathing sounds they make, and that they are lying down, and that they do not stir except in the ways that sleeping things move, and that there is no squawk in outrage at the trespassing of a stranger here.

Very carefully, Hiccup retreats. He is ready to go back into the tunnels and continue exploring when he looks again at the things in the cave.

He knows that humans do not track by scent, but it is good hunting to hide dragon-scent even when they are downwind of their prey, and there is a big human wearing-thing like an unfolded wing on the ground beside one of the ledges. He knows at once that it would be big enough to wrap around him, that he could hide his scales and his wings and his fin beneath it.

So when Hiccup leaves the cave with the sleeping humans he does so with a stolen cloak thrown over his scale-skins and hiding his face from humans.

He does not like the way he cannot see and hear as clearly beneath it, and that it does not stay where he wants it to unless he holds on to it _all the time_ , because he had been keeping one paw against the wall of the tunnels for reassurance, and the other gripping his only remaining claw. It is good, he decides reluctantly, that he had not taken any of the weapons. They had not fit right in his paws anyway. Taking one of them would have been like giving it to any human that ambushes him.

A dragon that walks through the nest with his biggest and most delicious fish held loosely in his jaws should not be surprised when that fish is stolen from him with a quick dive and a close snap.

But, he realizes as he grudgingly hides away the claw and wrestles with the cloak, if humans see _human_ _paws_ bared, they will think that the owner of those paws is human even if the rest of him is hidden.

Hiccup desperately wants his claws back. He wants to walk among his own people as _himself_ again. This pretending is making him sick, dizzy and frightened and disgusted, repulsed by the need to show to strangers – to enemies – everything he has tried so hard not to be.

Only when he catches the scent of the open air – the ocean, the wind, fresh and clean and familiar and friendly – does he realize that he has been moving upwards and outwards as if climbing out of a ravine, as if he had slipped and fallen.

He does not know if Toothless might be in the open air of the ship or if he might be deeper in it, or if he might be on another ship entirely. He will look at all of them, every tunnel and passageway and cavern, if he must. In open space he can be more easily seen, but the tunnels of the ship are too confining, too much a trap.

It would be a goodness and a rightness and a healing to see the horizon again.

So surely there is no harm in it, if he goes towards the new air of outside and the brightening light of morning?

Treading carefully, he moves towards the passageway and the climbing-ladder that leads out onto the top of the ship, but when a human shape appears in that light, the dragon-man stops, frozen with shock and confusion.

He recognizes this human.

This is _Uh strrrrTT!_

It makes no sense! He knows it is her – he knows the way that she moves, the colors she likes to wear, the way she makes her fur a rope, the way that her face is – but why is she here? She should be far away, she should be on _Buh-rrrrKK_ keeping the _pfikingr_ there from deciding that they do not like dragons anymore!

That she is here is not right. When _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ meet others on their wanderings, they do not expect that those others will go wandering too.

Hiccup is flailing and drowning and lost, frightened almost beyond reason, fleeing an enemy he cannot escape, forced to pretend to be something he rejected long ago. Insecure and defensive, his surprise and disorientation turn quickly to suspicion.

What has _Uh strrrrTT_ to do with this terrifying place and its mad Alpha?

He does not really believe that she is an enemy here. He knows her well enough to know that she is friendly to him and to Toothless, and that she has learned to trust dragons. She even flies some, and she tries to talk, and she stands between _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ and her red-furred _pfikingr_ Alpha so that when they are wary of the _pfikingr_ who was their mother's mate they can speak to her instead and she will listen.

She has trusted them, before, and under the bright sun Hiccup would trust her too, enough to speak to.

But this is a dark place, and he is afraid. He is beset on all sides and stressed to breaking, jumping at shadows because some shadows hide monsters and some hide not-there voices and some hide only emptiness. Everyone in this place has proven to be an enemy to _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_. Even dragons who should trust them and Licks Stones who should be a friend turned against them.

If Hiccup cannot trust Licks Stones, then he cannot trust _Uh strrrrTT_ either.

When the _pfikingr_ she descends the climbing-ladder and walks past him she does so without looking at him, twisting her shoulders away to make a space between them. Although her head is down there is frustration and anger in her jaw – it is an expression Hiccup recognizes well – and there is tension in her back, and her pacing is quick. She does not sound like she is racing towards something.

She sounds like she is racing away from something she does not like.

The dragon-man hesitates only a moment, longing for the open air and the scent of the ocean, but he turns to follow the _pfikingr_ she as she walks away.

It is a relief to drop into a hunting crouch, even if the cloak tangles around him and slips as he reaches for his last salvaged claw. With no human to see he pads after her, matching her quick steps as best as he can, and only for a moment drops all the way to the ground of the ship, ready to leap.

When he springs it is in a dragon's pounce, and she turns too late to strike him away. One of her paws strikes against his side, but when she falls all the breath goes out of her in surprise.

At once she is fighting even as she gasps like a fish flipped from a stream by a hunting paw, lashing out and baring her teeth even though humans do not bite and she has no breath to snarl, and she draws up a back paw to kick and thrash.

Hiccup does not have time to play at fighting with her, though, and he sets the claw to her throat and growls deep in his throat and chest _enough!_

Her eyes go very wide at the sound. She kicks still, but her paw catches the trailing cloak instead of striking a blow to wound.

When it falls away, Hiccup recognizes surprise and bafflement and indignation and just a bit of relief – and the sound of his name – in her voice.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	11. Chapter 11

_**Stormfall,**_ **Part Eleven**

Habit wakes Astrid early as much as nerves, to say nothing of the snores of her reluctant bunkmates. As much to prove a point to herself and everyone who might be watching her for weaknesses – she can still feel Drago's disdain as he looked her over and found her wanting – as a desire to escape from Snotlout's habit of talking nonsense in his sleep, she picks her way among the still-sleeping figures camping on the floor. She refrains from kicking any of them, however tempting the opportunity.

She resolves that being all but a prisoner, aboard a terrifyingly huge ship, commanded by a man who will kill her if he finds the slightest hole in her story, is not going to stop her from going where she wants and doing as she wishes.

So she shoves aside the slightly grimy feeling of sharing a cabin with the other young Vikings – she's shared closer quarters with people during the worst parts of devastating winter, with the whole village and the sheep too setting up camp in the Great Hall, but that doesn't mean she likes it – and reassumes her frightened-of-nothing, walks-like-she-owns-the-world persona. She dons confidence like a coat and pushes down the feeling that her deception is as visible as her golden braid.

When she walks out onto the deck of Drago's flagship, no one challenges her. No one so much as looks at her. Not directly, anyway, although she sees plenty of sidelong glances, quickly turned away. They're mostly indifferent to her presence, because their leader has commanded them to be, and she's no threat to them.

The more Astrid sees of Drago's world, the less she likes it, and she likes it no better this morning than she did yesterday. There's no welcome in it. It's all so…efficient. If it's not immediately useful, or immediately dangerous, there's no point in it.

Shouldn't the people of an army be sharp and alert? But to Astrid, the soldiers seem blunted. On Berk, the presence of a stranger is of great interest – anything to break the monotony of everyday work. Admittedly things are a little less everyday now, in a village still trying to figure out how dragons and humans are going to live together, but here?

This isn't a world Astrid wants to live in, and she resolves that she will not let Drago turn her weird and colorful home into somewhere like this.

The twins would never thrive here, and despite herself, Astrid actually prefers a world with room in it for people like the twins, even if that means building them their own house that they can destroy every so often without inconveniencing anyone else. If it catches on fire, they have only their own things to destroy and only themselves to blame.

That stupid dead shark has survived several fires, a few axe vs. mace duels, a disturbingly successful attempt by the twins to stick all their furniture to the ceiling, the removal of all the nails from the building to make a giant fishing hook out of, because "how else are we gonna catch a giant squid?", and a very isolated and entirely inexplicable flood.

Astrid embraces duty. Duty is her axe and her shield and her warm fur coat. But all these people, dedicated to a single goal, with no tolerance for the ready, cheerful lunacy that's so much a part of Berk that you can cut a stone in half and both sides will rock away off-kilter and never match each other again…these people are scary for what they aren't as much as for what they are.

People live here. The ships show the evidence of long and regular use. But it's not a home, and without that, why fight for it at all? Her people fought for so long because they love their home.

As she wanders, feeling eyes on her but seeing heads turn away before she can make eye contact, she wonders if some of Berk's ships, all the ones that set out to find the dragon nest and never came back, could have become like this. She imagines warriors sailing onwards, lost in the mist of Hel's Gate or the fog banks that border the territory of the Archipelago, unable to find their way home. If some of her own people lost their way, if they had nowhere to return to and no other goal but to kill dragons, would they become like this?

Are some of them here? It seems unlikely even she looks for familiar faces.

It gives her an idea, though. Maybe when they have more dragon riders, maybe they could set out to find those lost ships. Probably the crews are long dead, run up against the sea stacks and treacherous currents and deadly backwaters of the Gate. Probably they were burned to ashes by dragons. Possibly they were even taken by rival clans – the other tribes have always been as desperate as Berk, or more so. But even finding the bones of those ships would bring peace to some families.

Now she _has_ to make Drago believe that Berk is too big a mouthful to try to sink his teeth into. She has to get everyone home safely, Viking and dragon, so that they can at least try.

Oh, she misses Stormfly keenly, and she prays that her friend is safe and unharmed.

Usually being up and around in the mornings makes Astrid feel good about the day, like she's gotten a head start on the mad footrace that getting through a day on Berk always feels like. But the longer she spends watching dragons trudge around pulling heavy carts without looking up from the deck beneath their feet, the more she wants to go back to the cabin. At least the annoyances there are _familiar_.

She walks right past the man in the dark-green cloak without seeing anything particularly strange about him. The men of Drago's army are a mixed bunch. In less than a day she's seen men of all different descriptions and colors and sizes, with clothing and armor as mismatched. The only type of person she hasn't seen is so strange an absence she almost didn't notice – everyone she's seen so far is male.

What an enormous world it must be out there, to contain so many different kinds of people. But are all the peoples of the world warriors, then, that so many of them have followed Drago?

So she ignores him, brushing past dismissively as she thinks befits an ambassador from a powerful nation of warriors. Everyone she has encountered here has obeyed their master's order to let her and hers go where they want.

She doesn't feel threatened by the man, then, even if she does get the sense that he's lurking and watching her. He's not the first or only. So far the Vikings have spotted two people who are definitely shadowing them, but there must be more. So be it, Astrid thinks. She's not to be intimidated by such cheap tricks.

Forgetting him at once, she walks on.

It's only when some instinct prickles at her, tingling between her shoulder blades, that she starts to turn around.

All the breath goes out of her in a _whoof!_ as a shapeless figure hits her like a mace, and Astrid falls, rolling reflexively to soften the blow. Blinking away the stars that erupt behind her eyes, she hits out at random. Her hands tangle in fabric, softening the blow, but she feels her knuckles bark off something like armor.

Reacting without thinking, Astrid's shout of surprise and anger limps away as little more than a wheeze. When she twists, reaching for a weapon, she wastes her first returning breath on a curse – gods _damn_ Drago Bludvist and all his men who won't give her weapons back or let her take her pick of all the other pretty blades lying around! Let her only get her hands on a knife and she'll mark this idiot thug so deeply he'll remember it for the rest of his short sad life!

But then the tip of a blade presses against her throat, and Astrid freezes, thinking frantically.

All the wisps of a plan she's trying to gather up like mist blow away in an instant, though, as the figure pinning her to the deck warns her off not with a shout or a threat but with an eerily familiar growl.

Usually when people growl they're pretending, imitating something they've heard before, but this is the true animal snarl. It's a sound that shouldn't come from a human throat.

"No way…" Astrid whispers.

In her thrashing she'd struggled to get a knee up between her and her attacker, to knock the breath out of him or worse. There's plenty of space to do so – for someone attacking her, her assailant is being quite careful not to touch her. Instead, now, she catches the edge of the dark green cloth with her boot and pulls at it.

She guesses she shouldn't be surprised – since when has Hiccup _ever_ been where he's supposed to be, or acted as he's supposed to?

"Gods damn it, Hiccup!" she hisses at him, keeping her voice down. "What are you doing here? Get off! Let me go, you idiot!"

Briefly she wonders about the sense of insulting the man she was sort of here looking for, but she pushes that aside. Very likely he didn't understand most of those words anyway. It's not the first name she's called him, and unless one of Drago's men happens across them right now, it probably won't be the last.

"You're all right!" Astrid blurts instead. " _Are_ you all right?"

He doesn't look all right, as he steps away from her. The cloak he'd been hiding under puddles around him as he drops into the crouch she's seen him assume many times. And it's not a knife he'd held to her throat, Astrid sees now – it's a dragon's broken claw.

But he's trembling faintly, like the very last leaf, and his eyes are too wide, his face too pale. Even at a glance she can tell that he's terribly, terribly frightened, even before he startles at the sound of human voices somewhere down the passageway, tensing to run and holding that claw out before him as if he means to fight the entire army all around them with no other weapon.

Muttering dire curses about preposterous dragon-boys who never do anything halfway – okay, she doesn't know anyone else who thinks he's a dragon, but Astrid feels pretty comfortable generalizing – she scrambles to her feet and snaps her fingers lightly next to him.

He jumps and stares at her as if he'd forgotten she was there.

"Come on!" Astrid beckons to him. As she steps back, she nearly trips over the abandoned cloak, and puts some pieces together very quickly. "You're hiding, aren't you?" she asks, knowing she won't get a reply.

Picking up the cloak and throwing it at him might be a little petty, but Astrid does it anyway. Serves him right for pouncing on her. Astrid happens to know that dragons have a lot of ways of saying _hello_ , and only some of them involve pouncing.

If he understands the rebuke, he ignores it, rising to his full height and wrapping himself in the cloak again until he's anonymous once more.

"Nice to see you too, Hiccup," Astrid says sarcastically. She kind of means it, though. "Let's talk somewhere else, okay? Come on, then."

Beneath the improvised hood, she can see him nod, a gesture he picked up from her last year, and hear a whisper of "Issss."

To her relief, no one challenges them as she heads back to the Vikings' cabin with Hiccup padding along behind, nor does he show any indication of wandering off. Maybe she's the lesser of two evils.

After what she's seen of Drago's fleet already, imagining what the wild boy who so loves dragons must think of it all, Astrid must be a very small evil indeed.

When they get there, of course, it's a different story. Hiccup stops short at the door, reluctant to go in. Astrid doesn't blame him. The lantern-lit room is full of spectacularly unpredictable humans, and the dragon-raised feral is wary of getting too close to any humans, much less these. But she rolls her eyes and grabs one of his bare hands – he's clinging to the fabric of the cloak as if it might run away from him – hauling him the last few steps into the room so that he either has to go along or fall over.

He doesn't fall over, but she can feel him hiding behind her as all the eyes in the room turn towards them.

"Hey, who's your friend?" Ruffnut pipes up immediately from where she's sitting on the floor, getting Snotlout to retie one of her plaits. He's not doing a very good job of it, and Astrid suspects that Ruffnut just likes making her on-again, off-again admirer do things for her, even if he has absolutely no idea what he's doing. If she ends up with a braid that's mostly sailor's knots, it's entirely on her. Maybe she'll chop it all off again and then people will be able to tell her and Tuffnut apart for once. "We're bringing people back here now?"

Tuffnut picks up her theme without a hitch, which is more than can be said for Snotlout's braiding attempts. "Ugh, so much for having a secret hideout," he complains.

No matter how often Astrid tells herself not to play the twins' games, it's so hard not to. "It's not secret," she settles for saying. "Shut up and look who's here, guys."

Maybe Hiccup trusts her; maybe it's just that the door has closed behind him and he's got nowhere to go. In any case, he holds mostly still while she reaches up and tugs the hood away from his face, even if he does recoil from her approaching hand just a bit.

"You found him!" Fishlegs lights up as Astrid holds the dragon-feral's eyes and gestures _it's okay, be easy, be calm_ – she uses the same signs with Stormfly, and hopes he understands that he's in no danger here.

"He found me," she says as she turns back to face their audience. They're staring, every one of them, so she deliberately puts herself between them and Hiccup, spreading her hands out as if her arms were mantling wings. She took responsibility of sorts for him a year ago, and Stoick asked her to look after him, if they happened to cross paths out here, and that has to include keeping this lot at bay.

Besides, he would have been one of her people, in another life. It's not his fault he's something else.

"And he's scared. No one can know he's here, okay?"

"No, I'm still asleep," groans Snotlout, abandoning his efforts at jamming pieces of hair together at random. Ruffnut says _hmph_ and takes over, fingers flying. "I'm having a nightmare. About crazy dragon kids. What's _he_ doing here?"

Still sheltering behind her, Hiccup growls in reply, knowing he's being spoken about even if he doesn't understand the words. They don't get on. They have never gotten on. They probably never will – Snotlout tried to kill him once, and Hiccup has never forgiven him for that, even if he won that fight. Hiccup sounds about as happy at being in an enclosed space with Snotlout as Snotlout looks at being in an enclosed space with him.

"I don't know yet, stupid. I thought it might be more important to get him out of sight. But I think he's hiding from Drago." Dismissing Snotlout, Astrid moves on. "Fishlegs, do you have any chalk in that book bag of yours?"

This, at least, Drago's soldiers didn't think to confiscate along with their weapons.

"Of course!" Fishlegs says helpfully, rummaging through his bag and coming up with a chunk of it. Finding it takes him longer than it should have, as he's still staring at the dragon rider.

Somehow they've already accumulated an impressive amount of useless stuff. Astrid kicks some of it out of the space she claimed as hers yesterday. (She'd made the terms nice and clear: _trespass and die_.) When Fishlegs finally tosses her the chalk, she sits down cross-legged on the newly cleared boards.

"Hiccup," she calls, patting an invitation. "Come and talk to me."

He takes a tentative step forward, shoulders hunching defensively, trying to watch everyone at once, and crosses the rest of the room in a scuttling leap, getting past them as quickly as possible. But at the end of it he's perched on the floor across from her, out of reach but close enough to see whatever she draws.

It's still frustrating that they struggle so much just to talk to each other. Astrid knows he's clever. She knows there's a very intelligent young man locked up in there somewhere, buried under dragon scales and hidden in the wildness. She tries very hard not to treat him like a dumb animal or a child.

She doesn't always succeed. She has to use baby talk to keep to words he recognizes, dumbing down everything she wants to say to the point where she's had more fluent conversations with distracted three-year-olds. He reacts to her overtures with hisses and yowls and dragon's cries, turning away from her in frustration when she doesn't understand him either.

Sometimes _Astrid_ feels stupid, watching him slash at the air between them as if shoving her away for not trying hard enough or not seeing something obvious. She can see him, sometimes, in the small spaces: the man he should have been, before the dragon reasserts control.

But she tries. She hopes he realizes that: that she tries. That she wants to be friends, and that she actually likes him.

He's the strangest friend she has, and this is a list that includes Stormfly – she never would have imagined that a dragon would be her best friend.

The cloak he's wrapped around himself protectively is inside out, she notices. He looks no less frightened than he did in the corridor, and Astrid can't shake the feeling that he's cowering, that all she's done is corner him.

A glance over her shoulder shows her why – all eyes are still on him, and maybe it's that he's shrinking away from, trying to be invisible with nowhere to hide.

Nowhere to hide.

Wait a second – where in the names of all gods is _Toothless?_

Astrid has never seen Hiccup without Toothless somewhere close by. They act like they're tied together, fused at the shoulder like a Zippleback. They dote on each other like nothing else in the world matters, and sometimes Astrid has had to look away, embarrassed for them – as if they cared, which they don't – and at the same time envious of what they have, knowing that they obey different rules but humbled, somehow, in the face of such absolute and unconditional love.

When Hiccup is frightened, or angry, Toothless always comes to his defense like a protective, vengeful lightning bolt, howling a threat.

Hiccup is _terrified_ , now. Toothless should be here.

That the Night Fury is nowhere to be seen makes Astrid's blood run cold. She would sooner drop a hammer and see it fly upward, or walk across solid stone and have it turn to treacherous mud beneath her, or turn her face to a flame and feel it leach the warmth from her skin.

When she'd met them it had looked almost profane for a dragon to adore a human so clearly, unspeakably strange to see them talk and play together.

Now to see Hiccup alone feels like the world is spinning out of balance, as if something has tipped beneath her feet and all the oceans are sliding off into the void at the edge of the world in the greatest – and last – waterfall the world has ever seen.

"Everyone," Astrid says carefully, "turn around."

"Huh?" says Tuffnut.

"Look away. Talk among yourself. Fetch breakfast. Do handstands. Count to ten thousand. No, don't do handstands. Forget I said that. Go back to sleep. Something. Just – stop staring."

"What about cartwheels?" Tuffnut demands.

"Only if you do them in the hallway. Keep an eye out for eavesdroppers while you're at it."

Astrid takes her own advice and turns her back on Hiccup, hoping he'll relax somewhat without everyone staring at him. The few times he's been into the village on Berk, he's retreated from prying eyes by hiding behind Toothless, or under one of the Night Fury's wings, or both of them will simply disappear.

Under her glare, the others back away to the opposite side of the room, but no one leaves.

When she looks around again, Hiccup has turned his dark-green cloak into a tangled nest of sorts, and is curled up in it. She's unsurprised to see that he's still wearing his dragon-scaled armor underneath it, and now he's staring at the scales along his forearm with a look of relief, the stress in his back easing somewhat. At some point he seems to have added a hood to the rest of it, and with his head lowered beneath it, he doesn't look at all human. If he put green eyes on that hood, he'd look almost entirely like a little Night Fury, which is, she thinks, how he likes it.

He's acting like a dragon again.

"Better?" Astrid asks softly, and when he tips his head at her curiously, amends that to, "Good?"

She's never heard him sigh quite like that. "Issss," he says at the end of it, and "uudt".

Hiccup starts asking questions before she can figure out how to ask hers, pointing to her, then gesturing around, whistling inquisitively.

"Why am I here?" she checks, stalling while she puts the last few days into the words they have in common. He thinks it over and nods.

"We look for you," Astrid essays, pointing to herself and the others, then staring all around, then waving at him. "Stoick is worried." She assumes an expression of intense worry, and points in a circle. "These people out there are very bad."

The dragon-feral snarls fiercely, but not at her, Astrid is relieved to notice, stomping down hard on her urge to jump and run. He sounds _much_ bigger than he is when he does that. Hiccup flexes his hands like claws, digging at the fabric of the cloak, then gestures _give that_ at her.

She rolls him the chalk, and he snatches it from the deck and starts drawing.

Hiccup draws himself as a dragon, because he really doesn't understand what he looks like or, as Astrid suspects, doesn't care. If she had only his word for it – his word in this case being an actually quite intricate chalk sketch – he looks like a smaller and slightly more bipedal Night Fury with no tail.

And then he draws sharp lines around the dragon figure, and through it in a grid. He slams the chalk to the deck and spits furiously, and Astrid hisses in her own right.

A cage. _Drago put him in a cage_.

"And Toothless?" she asks, almost afraid to know.

He whimpers, anxiety and fear showing clearly on his face, and looks all around as if Toothless might be hiding under one of the kicked-together blankets or in the giant basket someone brought back here when Astrid wasn't looking. When he turns his hands up to show empty palms and shrugs before hunching over to hide his face – is it so she cannot see him hurt as he cries "Tt-th-ss, Tt-th-ss, Tt-th-ss," again and again, voice lilting slightly differently on each sound? – he could not have said _I don't know but I'm afraid_ more clearly if he'd spoken fluent words.

How wrong it looks, for him to be alone. He's no child. He's survived things she can't imagine, made himself into something that shouldn't exist, fought a war she doesn't understand and ended one she couldn't stop. He walked, Astrid interprets, into the lair of his enemy to search for the dragon he loves like a twin brother.

But he looks so very small.

Astrid is furious for him. There are things you do not do. You do not betray your clan. You do not help the enemy, whoever they may be. You do not harm a child. In winter, you do not steal from your neighbors because you have failed to prepare. These days, you do not kill a dragon lest you needlessly restart a war. And you _do not_ mess with Hiccup and Toothless.

If she can pay back the slightest bit of what she owes him, the debt she incurred when she asked him for help and he came back with an army and put paid to their war for good, she is going to do everything she can to put this right.

"You were looking for him," Astrid says. He probably isn't listening anymore, but it never hurts to talk to him. He's picked up a few things that way, and the more readily they can talk to each other, the better. "That's why you were sneaking around, pretending to be human."

She hears the words leave her mouth, and decides not to blink at them. It's really easier to think of him as a dragon – he does.

"Hiccup?" Astrid says. She reaches out, considers, silently offers up a quick prayer to anyone listening, and taps his shoulder once.

He peeks up at her from under the edge of that dark hood.

"We will look for Toothless," she tells him, repeating her pantomime of herself and everyone looking.

She's not at all surprised to see that the rest of the room is watching them even though she told them not to. They're being more careful about it – Snotlout is staring into that giant basket with an astonishing lack of sincerity, and Fishlegs is pretending to write in his _Book of Dragons_ , although on second thought he may _actually_ be writing in it, since he's been happy to consider Hiccup another species of dragon just like a Timberjack or a Flightmare. The twins are, regrettably, doing handstands, but at least they're being quiet about it.

Astrid suppresses the urge to clap her hands for their attention. They're listening. "Okay, people. Here's what we're going to do today."

The twins fall out of their handstands in the universal rush to stop pretending to ignore the conversation in the corner of the room. Somehow they manage to hit the same spot, except that Tuffnut gets there first and Ruffnut lands on him. They don't even bother to squabble about it.

"Here's the plan. Go wherever you can get to. Ask questions. Look at anything you can." Astrid exaggerates a bit for Hiccup's benefit, hoping he'll recognize the names. "Look for Toothless. Look for Minnow, and Dark Deep, and Fearsome, and Barf and Belch, and Stormfly. We have to get them back so we can go away from here and get home to Berk. But be careful."

That will be the day. But if there was ever a time for careful, this would be it.

"I'm going to stay here with Hiccup for now. Don't tell anyone that he's here. No one comes in here but us. I want everyone back here by lunchtime so I know you're all alright."

"Aw," says Ruffnut, grinning, "you do care."

"Oh, shut up. We have to be a team out here."

For a while it looks like she'll have to physically push them out the door, but then Fishlegs mentions breakfast and they're off so fast it might as well be a race.

When they've cleared out – it's too much to ask that they'll remember to bring her some breakfast as well, but Astrid has survived worse things than skipping a meal or two – she stands up and walks away, stretching as she does so. Very probably, she's going to spend a lot of time sitting on the ground again.

Despite everything, it's good to be back to this. Just her and the feral boy, trying to communicate. Far too often it's frustrating, seeing her words run up against a blank wall of misunderstanding and not listening, trying to interpret things he thinks he's saying clearly with no more than a twitch of tension or an unfamiliar warble of tangled sound, but sometimes she reaches out and he meets her halfway. When they manage to connect, it's a small magic.

But when she looks back over her shoulder, out of the corner of her eyes the way Stormfly examines things sometimes, she can't help but worry for him.

From the way Hiccup is eying the closed door she can tell that he doesn't want to be here. He's a creature of the outdoors – he and Toothless will wander Berk, largely from the rooftops, but she's never seen them go into a building. They'll look, certainly. They stare raptly into the fires of the forge and she saw them looking into the Great Hall, once.

Astrid sympathizes, more than a bit. Not the feeling of being confined, but with the inactivity that must be eating at him. Already the deck around his impromptu nest is thick with scribbles, and most of them are recognizably Toothless.

"Can I see?" she asks, sitting down between him and the door. It's a better idea to have the Vikings look for Toothless and the other dragons, since they seem to have the run of at least this ship. But if Astrid is having trouble accepting that she needs to leave searching for Stormfly to the others for now, it must be a thousand times worse for Hiccup to entrust finding his beloved Toothless to people he doesn't even really like.

He glances up, meeting her eyes momentarily, and nods _yes_. So she looks over his sketches, trying to follow his thoughts.

"It's all right," she says, tearing herself away from the anguish he's scribbled across the deck. That much, at least, she understands. "You're not alone. I know we're not – I know I'm not – Toothless. But we're your friends too, okay?"

There's a type of freedom in being able to relax the pretense that she's been keeping up under the mad eyes of Drago Bludvist and the dully suspicious ones of his crew. There's no one else she can admit to that she's afraid too, even if she does so only by letting down the guard she has to maintain with others watching. She may not feel the paralyzing terror that Hiccup must be experiencing, separated from Toothless, but she too wants to be far away from here.

But she can't turn her back and hope this menace goes away. Who will fight it off if she doesn't? It's not in Astrid's nature to put her fate in the hands of another and trust them not to drop it.

Drago and his army are her problem. She made them her problem by coming here. The moment she saw the ships, the moment she understood what her people will have to face, she was committed to doing everything in her power to hold it all at bay.

Maybe she's fighting the tide with an axe, but she'll still be out there swinging until the blade rusts from her fingers and she drowns.

"I'm never sure if you understand that. That I want to be your friend. You and I shouldn't have been enemies, you know that? So I'll protect you, and I'll help you, if I can. You and Toothless both. I promise, Hiccup."

Her reassurances may be hollow – she can promise his safety with no more confidence than she can promise the safety of her friends – but if all she can do is keep him here so that Drago won't find him and put him in a cage like he's no more than an animal, she will damn well do that.

"Can I play, too?" she asks, making the sign for _give_ at the chalk. It's crumbling in his hands under the force he's exerting on it to blank out a scene Astrid hadn't understood but that had upset him. He'd looked away from the shapes and shadows like it had frightened him, as if it might come to life if he looked too long, and then turned on it in a rage to destroy it.

He sets the chalk down a fair distance from his nest, and nudges it so it moves towards her. As Astrid starts trying to draw the last few days – she's a third-rate artist at best, but maybe trying to make sense of her drawings will keep his mind off Toothless' absence – he spits on his hands unselfconsciously and scrubs them free of chalk dust against the cleanest section of deck he can reach.

Grinning to herself, Astrid draws an island, sort of, with plenty of dragons, more or less, and some Viking helmets. That's Berk. Next to it she draws Eret's ship – or so – and fills in representations of herself and the others and their dragons. Some of them look a lot like the stylized symbols in the _Book of Dragons_ , but those are easier to draw.

The ships of Drago's fleet are a lot harder to draw, and they end up as sort of blocky rectangles behind rough waves. So she tries to draw the warlord himself next to them, frowning as she puts in his hooked staff, and his black cloak, and his tangled hair, and –

Hiccup knocks her off-balance, ramming his shoulder into hers and snarling, to make her stop. "Nuh!" he spits at it. "Bad bad bad bad bad!" and thumps a fist down on the drawing just like any villager with a beer mug trying to make a point.

"Yeah, I get it," Astrid says wryly as he erases Drago from existence until the image of the warlord is little more than a chalky, dusty blur. "You don't like Drago much. Me neither."

He turns back towards her, head tipped to one side slightly in puzzlement. "Drakkk uh?" he asks.

"Drago," she repeats for him, pointing to the remains of the drawing. Pointing to herself, she says, "Astrid," and waving at him, "Hiccup." She even takes a stab at the way he says his name, although it comes out as a terribly choked noise.

The dragon rider grimaces, looking like he's smelled something awful. "Nuh," he says firmly. He makes the rattling, hissing sound that means Hiccup and Toothless together, and adds, "drakkkn".

It takes a moment for him to find the chalk where she'd dropped it, but he snatches it away almost from out of her hands without hesitation. With it he draws a long scribbling line that crosses over itself and weaves in and out and generally goes nowhere until it's just one big tangled mess.

 _This_ , he gestures to it, and, _here_ , tapping two fingers against his forehead, and _that_ , off the smeared-out blotch that was Astrid's drawing.

"He's the crazy person," Astrid interprets, biting back a smile. Not because Drago is funny – he's the least funny person she's ever encountered – but because it's such an unconditional assessment.

"Krrr-ssss," Hiccup mimics in a mutter.

"You're not wrong about that."

She waits while he draws another dragon, something low and flat so that she almost thinks it's a Thunderdrum until it grows two narrow noses like swords. Fishlegs might know what it is. She'll ask when he gets back if the drawing survives that long.

 _Give_? she gestures again as he works his way back towards her, stepping carefully amidst the rubbish already infesting the room rather than shoving it aside as Astrid would.

Maybe he's starting to trust her, or maybe he's too tired to care, or maybe he's just not paying attention, but for the first time Hiccup hands her something directly, reaching out and dropping the remainder of the chalk into her open hand.

"Thank you," Astrid says absently, before she notices the significance of that gesture, and then she forgets what she meant to draw while she smiles.

Her delight is broken into by a whistle, Hiccup asking for attention, and when she looks at him he gestures, rolling his hand in a circle.

They established that a while ago – it means _say that again._

So she repeats it more clearly for him: "Thank you." To illustrate, she holds the chalk close to her and smiles, happy to have it. "You?" Astrid asks then. "How do you say it?"

He's crouching across from her like a cat, hands flat on the deck and knees drawn up under him, but he moves his hands forward and ducks his shoulders and bows his head, briefly submissive. "t-an ku," he repeats, slightly garbled but understandable.

"That's right," she praises, making a mental mark next to another word they can use together.

He _whuff_ s at her, though, not so much scolding as teasing. "t-an ku," he repeats, pointing at the room, the drawings, the door, the nest he's made from that stolen cloak. And sighs, closing his eyes as his shoulders heave, like he's exhausted.

For this, Astrid understands him as saying. He's thanking her for the refuge, for the safety, however brief, however inadequate.

Astrid is never going to tell anyone, but she really likes this strange little dragon. Of course, he probably already knows – it's hard to keep a secret about the way she feels from someone who can read her emotions from the angle of her elbows and how often she blinks.

"I forget that you're sweet," she says, remembering only just in time to keep her teeth out of her smile. She's smiled more in the last few minutes with him around than all of yesterday with Drago and his army surrounding her, Astrid admits. For all he's _weird_ he's still not bad company. "You're welcome."

She wonders how long he'll stay here, how long he can bear to stay away from his search for his beloved Night Fury. Astrid promised Stoick that she'd protect Hiccup if she found him, but she cannot force him to remain hidden, even if he's safer here with her and the other young Vikings.

He'd drawn himself in a cage, and Astrid won't be the person who puts him even in a slightly bigger one.

Before long, she knows, he'll be away again.

It's the same dilemma that wounds Stoick, every time without fail. The scar of losing his family tears open again every time Hiccup and Toothless drop in briefly and then disappear again. No matter how badly Stoick wants to capture his wild son and keep him – Astrid believes, now, that Stoick would even be willing to keep Toothless as well, accepting the presence of the Night Fury as the price of the presence of his son – to do anything of the sort would only drive him away, probably forever.

The relationships they've managed to build between the dragon-feral and the humans who have come to care about him are too fragile to put any such weight on.

So Astrid has to accept that this refuge is temporary, that soon he'll disappear into the depths of Drago's fleet, for all that he may as well be walking into Hel's own dominion.

It's odd that she's still imagining him disguised as a human, that she thinks of what he was doing as pretending. He is human.

But she's resigned herself to the idea that he's not. Tuffnut was right – she will never, ever tell him that – Hiccup bends reality around himself until it's the shape he wants it to be.

How far they've come, from the wild creature and the dragon-hating warrior, that they can sit here together with her promising to help him and that he trusts her to do so.

* * *

"Okay," says Astrid, to the lunchtime meeting. "What do we know?"

"My sister's a menace," Tuffnut says, seemingly divided between admiration and disgust.

Undeniably so. "We do know that. What'd you do, Ruff?"

"Did you know they can store Zippleback gas?" Ruffnut exclaims. "They've got a whole closet full of it, just jars on shelves. It was sort of locked because it turns out they kind of explode when they're slightly dropped, but I sort of borrowed the key. Seriously, if he didn't want me to go back and get into it again, why did he show me it and then put the key somewhere I could take it?"

"Unbelievable," Snotlout rolls his eyes. "No one would have guessed that."

Astrid laughs with the rest of them, but inside she's imagining those jars being dropped on Berk from above, their bearers far out of range of even the strongest longbow or most tightly wound catapult.

"I learned how to say 'ship' in seven different languages," reports Fishlegs. "And I can remember…uh…four of them. And 'dragon' in five, all of which I remember. But no one will tell me where they might have taken Minnow and Dark Deep! They must be so frightened by now! No one's ever been mean to them!"

This isn't quite true – Snotlout has the good sense to keep his mouth shut this one time – but Fishlegs has opened the question everyone wants an answer to.

"There are way too many ships to search one at a time," Snotlout says instead. "We could be here for weeks."

"I don't think we have weeks," Fishlegs scowls. "There's something going on – have you noticed that the fleet is moving? They're heading out of the ice like they're going somewhere."

"Maybe they're just going somewhere with more supplies?" Astrid suggests, heart sinking. The ship had lurched, earlier, and she had wondered if something had struck it, but there'd been no shouts from outside or smell of fire or sounds of combat. "It's not like they've got much to hunt in the middle of a bunch of icebergs, and they've got to get this blinding spice stuff somewhere."

Whatever it is, there's nothing like it in the Archipelago, and every eye in their rough council is watering a bit. Despite intense testing, Tuffnut has been unable to breathe fire yet, although Astrid understands why he would think he might be able to.

"If I had to eat this all the time," Astrid had said of it, scraping her trencher into the slops bucket and deciding to stick with the bread, hard as it is, "I'd want to rule the world too. My first command would be to start cooking food that didn't make my eyes burn."

It's probably not worth pointing out that Hiccup had sniffed at it, tried only the smallest bite of the stew, nipping a chunk of it from the bowl with quick fingers, and pulled away grimacing, before refusing it entirely.

"That's because you're smarter than me," Astrid had told him wryly.

He's been curled up in his nest throughout their council, watching them talk and drawing on the freshly washed boards, at first. A little while ago Fishlegs had been unable to resist the opportunity and taken his _Book of Dragons_ copy over to the wild boy, opening it to a specific page and offering him the very best of his charcoals.

Quite what he'd requested, Astrid isn't sure – it had been her turn to go out into the hallway and check everywhere for their watchers and eavesdroppers – but Hiccup seems content enough to work on it.

"I don't think so," Fishlegs says now. "You should feel it out there, Astrid. I don't understand a lot of the words, and most people won't talk to me anyway, but there's definitely something going on."

"No one will talk to me either," Snotlout complains. "What did we _do?_ "

"Existed, I think."

"Hey, there was something weird, though," Tuffnut breaks in. His face is still somewhat red from the spices experiment, but gods know he's done worse things to himself in pursuit of some crazy idea or another. "Weird _er_. It's all weird. But I figured if they're hiding something awesome, it'll be hidden, right? So I tried going down to the bottom of the ship but then that one guy who's following me –"

"The one with the pointy nose?" Ruffnut asks.

"No, the one with no ears."

"Oh, that one."

"– made me turn around and go somewhere else. So maybe there is something awesome down there."

"Maybe our dragons are down there!" Fishlegs gasps, encouraged.

Astrid waves a piece of bread at him. "I don't know. Only one boat came here from Eret's ship, and we were on it."

Fishlegs deflates. "Oh."

"No, but this is progress, guys. And no one told them anything about Berk, right?"

A lot of uncertain glances go around the circle. "Um…I don't think so?" offers Fishlegs.

Tuffnut: "Nah."

Ruffnut: "No way."

Snotlout: "Of course not!"

Astrid really wants to believe them, but the longer they're here, the more likely it is that their secret – that there's no alliance, there's no army, that Berk is vulnerable, that their new way of life is as far away from Drago's grim world of war as anything could be – will leak out and expose them all as liars.

"Okay," she says instead. "You did good. All of you. We've got to go beyond this ship, though. Our dragons are out there somewhere."

"Time for the _ambassador_ to come out and play, then," Ruffnut prods at her. "I dunno what you want me to say when someone asks me where I'm from or what I want. I mean, I want all sorts of things."

"I want a new tongue," Tuffnut puts in.

"You _need_ a new head," his sister retorts.

If she lets them get going they'll be here all day, and she can't in good conscience leave Hiccup alone with these lunatics. They may be impressed with him, but she doubts it's mutual. "Right. My turn," she accepts. "Give me a minute – and get these trenchers out of here before we all go spice-blind. What? The _ambassador_ ," she snipes back at Ruffnut, who sticks out her tongue, "is far too important to fetch and carry dishes."

She's going to pay for this in a thousand tiny ways once they get back to Berk, she knows. It may be years before she hears the end of it. But that's a price she'll gladly pay, if it means Berk is still standing years from now, and her friends are still around to tease her. If it means that the memory of this has survived as a joke rather than a tragedy, she'll bear the ribbing and enjoy it.

Here and now, though, she's going to have to leave Hiccup alone. She can't take the risk of someone wondering why there's always one of the Vikings from Berk in their cabin, and growing suspicious enough to think that they're hiding something.

In all likelihood, he'll be gone by the time any of them get back, and then there will be nothing she can do to protect him.

Except learn, and prepare, and find some blind spot or flaw in Drago's armor that will be the key to bringing the warlord and all his army to a grinding halt.

She means to check with him to make sure he understands that she's leaving; she means to ask him to stay, to trust her to look for Toothless. But as she sits down near him she catches sight of the double page of the _Book of Dragons_ he's working on, and all those words are whisked from her throat to leave her dumbstruck.

 _Wildfire_ , the title reads, and on one of the pages, in the space between Fishlegs' notes – on him, although Hiccup cannot read them and probably has no idea – the dragon-feral has drawn himself and Toothless, the one figure almost as lifelike as a memory, the other utterly imaginary, but a wish so strong it's all but real.

He's drawn them together like a prayer, as if he's drawn himself a map to the future.

"Fishlegs," Astrid says instead, a smile creeping into her voice, "you gave him a name."

He stops on his way to the door, arms loaded down with _all_ the dishes. Ruffnut, Tuffnut, and Snotlout, who are all but guaranteed to team up on Fishlegs if they get a chance, look smug. "Uh…yeah. Sorry? But I needed a title!"

"It's okay. It's sweet. Don't _ever_ show Stoick, if you value your life."

"You bet," Fishlegs promises, and confronts the problem of the door.

When Astrid looks away from that spectacle – after making gruesome faces at Snotlout to convey what she'll do to him if he doesn't stop laughing and start being useful for once in his sorry life – she finds that she is being watched with an eerily even stare. He's not shaking anymore, and there's a resolve as hard as steel in his eyes. There's less of the frightened wild animal, now, and more of the warrior who'd met her gaze, and laughed, and leapt into the abyss knowing how to fly.

Hiccup shifts to sit up and raises a hand between them, opening and closing it repeatedly.

She doesn't understand at first, and then she does.

"Bye-bye," she whispers, as if to a child. "Bye-bye."

He always understands more than she gives him credit for.

"You won't be here when I get back, will you?" Astrid asks rhetorically, and is not surprised when the only answer she gets is the dragon-feral – the Wildfire – turning back to his work on the drawing of Hiccup and Toothless together, the only reality he's prepared to accept.

"And I can't stop you. But come back here, if you can? You're safe here, with us, and we'll keep looking for Toothless too."

The charcoal smooths over a line of Toothless' wings like a caress, and Astrid can see that Hiccup's other hand is tracing the same line blindly.

"Okay," she accepts. "I guess I'll have to trust you too. Be safe, if you can."

Astrid wonders if there is some god out there that looks out for human boys who think that they're dragons. Perhaps not. She can only think of one who might, and it's rarely wise to ask favors of people who think that they're funny.

She'll pray for him, regardless.

And just in case that doesn't work, she is going to bring Drago Bludvist _down._

* * *

 _To be continued._


	12. Chapter 12

_**Stormfall,**_ **Part Twelve**

Hidden again, Hiccup ventures through the tunnels of the ship with more confidence. It is good to know that his pretending is a good pretending, that even someone who knows him and recognizes him to look at could see him pretending and not know. If he did not look strange to _Uh strrrTT_ , then it must be a good pretending.

Still, he is no happier with it than before. To pretend to be human is like wearing mud, that smears and is cold and then dries flaky and itchy, and the dust makes everyone sneeze, and it is not good to lick away.

From the talking of the _pfikingr_ who are a flock to _Uh strrrTT_ , he had understood that there was something to look at, something they had not seen, down deep in the ship.

He longs for the open air, but the _pfikingr_ flock returned smelling of it, and from that Hiccup knows that they had looked all around in the sunlight, and had not found Toothless.

It is a strange feeling, to be grateful to humans. It is still nervous-making, to be so close to them, but they had followed their leader when she commanded them, and _Uh strrrTT_ he trusts to not be an enemy, and he would have purred to have their eyes look with him if he had not been so afraid. Inside the wounds are still bleeding, dripping into the emptiness where his heart should be to flood and drown him, and inside there is a voice like thinking but it is screaming, howling to echo back from the moon.

But those things are hidden away inside where they cannot be seen or heard, covered over a bit like a small leaf over a big stone by the goodness of playing with the pictures that Talking Fish carries with him, a remembering of dragons for others to see. With the itching of pretending to be human biting at his skin like many small flies, the drawing he had made in the remembering had been like padding into water and hiding from those flies there. Even though the _pfikingr_ had seen him pretending, it had not mattered. Talking Fish had still known that _(click)-phuh_ is a dragon really, and belongs with all the other many shapes and kinds of dragons in the remembering.

But now the muscles in his shoulders pull tight as if flexing wings, as if there were eyes on him that he cannot see and voices slithering at his tail but falling silent when he turns on them, and he thinks again of Dark Things. And deeper down was where Dark Things waited, so that is where Hiccup will go.

He will find them and snarl at them and bristle ready to fight until they slink aside defeated and let him pass in safety to where Toothless _must_ be.

Drawing the cloak more tightly around himself, one paw resting on the tie he made in it to hold it in place, he crosses past another tunnel and does not turn and dart away from a human walking in it. This one calls out as others have not, as he wanders searching, but Hiccup does not try to answer in human words.

Instead he lowers his head and walks more quickly, saying with his steps that he knows where he is going and is in a hurry with a strong purpose, like a dragon-mother who has left her hatchlings to roll and tumble and chew on things in her nest while she hunted, who does not trust her flock-mates to keep her little ones from causing trouble.

He listens always for dragons, but there are no familiar sounds in this place, only the noises of humans. It is strange even in a nest of strangeness, wrong tangled up in wrongness. There are many dragons on this ship. He knows it. He has seen them, up above, and some of the humans who walk past him unconcerned smell of them, like fire and musk and scales and fish. They wear covering things too, and heavy furs, and put hoods up around their faces, and take no notice of the disguised dragon-feral.

On the Island of Dragons and Strange _Pfikingr_ called _Buh-rrrrKK_ , dragons and humans live together, all mixed together almost like a flock. This is a new thing, but a thing Hiccup is pleased with, because they are not hurting each other anymore and can do better things like hunt for themselves and play and bask in the sun and watch the doings of humans with interest.

There is no mixing of dragons and humans here. They do not live together as they do on _Buh-rrrrKK_. So these tunnels must be for humans, and not for dragons.

Hiccup reasons that he must find the places for dragons.

Still he moves onward, and downward, looking into small caves and down tunnels, learning as he does the shape of the ship-cave so that he does not cross his own trail and follow his own pawprints imagining that he is hunting a clever quick rival he cannot catch even when he races very fast. As he does so he notices that the ship is moving, and sets it aside. He cannot worry that it rolls under his feet and makes him stumble, that he must again and again reach out a paw and brace it against the wood of the ship until his paws learn to step with it so he does not fall.

It is not important. It does not matter.

Once they are _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ again they can fly from anywhere, they can fly always, always and always until they are far away.

Finding Toothless- _heart-beloved_ is all he can think of, focused on that needful thing like a wriggling fish to be pounced on, so that he is blind and deaf and numb to all other things all around except the shadow of an enemy.

Remembering the humans who had smelled of dragons a bit, Hiccup hunts by scent, searching for a breath of dragon-musk to lead him to the places for dragons. The smell of humans and their furs and metals and strange foods is strong, but close by he catches the familiar seawater scent of many fish.

There are sounds of humans that way, and the flickering of tame fires as they move in human paws, but Hiccup slinks towards the scent anyway, desperate.

He is reassured a bit that no humans have challenged him. There is no yowl of protest, no reaching snatching striking paws to cuff him back and tear away the covering to show his scales and wings, no hunting howl calling others to chase him from their lair. When he walks away from them, they lose interest. When he grunts a _busy_ sound in answer to their talking, they shrug and do not chase. But to go toward them is more daring than he likes.

He finds that there are many – but not very many – humans clustered around a rolling thing that carries many dead fish. But these fish are not burnt and not taken apart the way humans eat them; they are raw and fresh the way dragons hunt them.

The rolling thing rumbles through the tunnel when humans push it, making the humans in front of it press themselves against the walls to let it pass. It is a thing not to be quarreled with because it has no eyes and its rolling feet are heavy, and in its blindness it will tread on smaller paws. Its paws grind against the ground of the ship inexorably, always forward, and it hauls many woven holding-things of fish on its back.

Hiccup follows it with careful steps and cautious watching, tracking it like a heavy-hoofed prey beast that might lead him back to its herd. Sometimes it is better to follow softly instead of striking quickly, so that many dragons can dive in and bring down many beasts all at once. If hunters startle only one alone then the other running beasts will flee at the sound of hunting-pouncing and death.

The word-sounds of the humans pushing it are strange to him, but he understands from their voices and their bodies that they do not like what they are doing, that they do not want to do it, that they are reluctant to go further.

At last he hears a sound he recognizes, and the familiar word – it is the sound for _dragon_ – almost provokes him to leap and cry out in delight. The humans are complaining about dragons, as they gesture to the rolling thing and the fish! The fish are going to where dragons are!

Inspired and filled with a mad courage, Hiccup pads in closer to the rolling thing and does not flinch away and flee when the humans look up and see him.

One of them growls at him, and makes human gestures and words. From these Hiccup understands that he is being told to push the rolling thing too.

At any other time he would have fled at the first glance, and to do as a human commands is not a thing he would ever have done. Often he does not even do as _Uh strrrTT_ or the _St-t-t-t-t-kk_ asks of him, unless it was a thing he meant to do already, or if it might be interesting, or if it does not tread on his tail to do so. But the dragon-feral is truly desperate, driven half-mad by loneliness and silence and the suffocating close-in strangeness of the ship tunnels with humans everywhere. Always a risk-taker anyway, for him there is no line remaining between brave and foolish, impulsive and dangerous.

So he lets them see his paws but not his face or his scales, and pushes it with them, keeping quiet when they grumble to each other and shrinking away from the heavy bodies of human strangers too close to him.

The rolling thing cannot go down a climbing-ladder to even deeper in the ship, but humans have made a trick for that too. They put many ropes all around it, and tie those ropes to more ropes, and push it out so that it flies and hovers over the deep hole.

At last there are dragons, but on the other end of the ropes, stocky and strong, pulling to hold the rolling thing and the fish in the air, and Hiccup feels a terrible raging flame light in his heart when he sees them. He wants to leap to them and cry out to them as cousins and cut the ropes away from where they are bound. When they pace away slowly and the rolling thing descends, they have trodden ruts into the floor and their claws are all worn away.

He has no claws or blade to fight with, and no fires that can be breathed out to burn the ropes away and blast the ship all apart so that they can fly free, but it tears him inside to turn away from them.

First _first first first first_ he must find Toothless again, and then they will be something to be feared.

But he can taste the hurting wail and the furious roar in his throat, waiting to be spoken, struggling to be free to echo down the tunnel of the ship and send humans running afraid.

At the bottom of the deep hole when the rolling thing has landed safely, most of the humans turn their backs and walk away. One stays with the rolling thing, and Hiccup stays too, waiting to see where the fish go.

The last human says something Hiccup does not recognize, sounding tired and resigned. He shrugs his shoulders like a dragon and gestures to the hidden dragon-feral, signaling _c'mon_ in the way that humans do, and lifts a latch, pushing it open into the cave beyond.

Like his beloved-companion Toothless some time before, Hiccup thinks of it as a cave – a bright cave as if there was much sun-fire light streaming into it, catching reflections all over like sun glancing off water. It is open and at first it is welcoming, a change as sharp and sweet as warmth on cold paws from the close tunnels of the ship.

It is as if they are not on the ship anymore, but in a cave somewhere, a safe place, far away.

But almost at once Hiccup sees this for the lie it is. The cave is a metal cave, as if a cave could be made of blades, the light not reflections from the small wavelets of the open ocean but echoes of tame fires lit everywhere. The sand under his paws is shallow, and when he braces his feet to push the rolling thing a little further, following the voice of the last human, it scuffs aside to show more metal, like human armor but all over. The ground beneath him rolls still, but only a bit, shifting again and again as ships do when the ocean shoves them aside.

And there has been fighting here, he knows. There is dried blood in the sand, and scuff-marks from paws and claws and struggling. He can track the paw-steps of prey, he knows the ways that dragons claw at the ground to gesture or pretend at fighting or scratch up a good nest, but there are so many tracks that it is impossible for him to know anything more. Dragons have chased all over here, and they have fought, and they have hurt, and that makes him wary.

The cave has metal teeth, and Hiccup imagines that it is snarling at him, jowls curled back to show its fangs in a threat.

Ducking his head to hide his face further, he snarls back at it, saying _fierce not-afraid me me me fierce back-away_ with his fangs and his eyes, but not in sounds. He wants to yowl at this lying, deceiving cave that hides in a ship where it should not be. But he does not, knowing that his voice will betray him.

There are many cave-mouths on one side of the cave, and only one all alone on the other, and it is to the many mouths that the last human guides the rolling thing, kicking at it when its paws get tangled up in the shallow sand. It is happy to stop, and settles into the sand when it stops moving.

The last human glares at the metal nets like cages across the smaller caves as he lifts one of the big woven holding things and drops it to the sand, as if he does not like the caves. He moves his mouth and sets his shoulders as if the caves are a disgusting thing, dismissing them in the way he turns away. Waving his paws sometimes, he makes sounds that seem to mean that he wants Hiccup to put the fish into the caves. One of the noises has to do with food, the dragon-man recognizes, and from this he figures out that the fish are for feeding the dragons in there, dragons the human does not like.

Hiccup is barely listening, only the need to maintain his pretending keeping even one ear on the talking of the human. Beyond the cages, he can hear movement, and he can smell dragons, and the urge to run to them is so strong he is almost shaking with it, biting back the purr that wants to rumble from him like thunder at the thought of being among dragons again.

Even if they turn their eyes to the Knotted Man and follow him as their Alpha, still that would be a thing he would understand. They would be a nest of enemies instead of flock-mates and friends, but they would be _dragons_.

But he holds still as if crouching in old dead brush that will crackle and make a loud sound if he moves, waiting.

At last the last human turns to go. As he pulls the rolling thing behind him across the shallow sand of the metal cave, the dragon-feral plays with the latch, watching over his shoulder, waiting for him to be far away and out of sight and hearing.

It is baffling to imagine a space that is a cage and a cave both. They are very different things; one a thing of humans, to be avoided always, hateful and terrible, and the other a place of safety, not made, but shaped sometimes by the dragons that live within it, secure and hidden.

But beyond Hiccup can hear the sounds of scales brushing past scales, of wings folding and unfurling, of claws clicking across wood and shuffling over sand, of deep _whuff_ ing scenting breaths, of very small _hungry_ noises.

 _Dragon_ sounds. Familiar sounds, right sounds, home and safe and family sounds.

Waiting hurts like a hunger.

The moment the last human disappears into the other tunnel, pulling the rolling thing behind him, Hiccup flips open the latch easily. It is not even locked like the cage the Knotted Man had held him in, just a lift and flip with a single paw latch.

This cage creaks open readily when he tugs on it, revealing darkness and movement and the eyes of dragons inside.

Hiccup sets his shoulder to the holding-thing of fish and pushes it towards the cave. It is heavy and does not want to move, but the dragon-feral is stronger than he looks, and insists until it does, tumbling over and rolling and dropping all its fish all over. He does not even consider leaving the fish – he has been hungry too often to turn his tail to food and forget it, and a good flock-mate too long to let dragon-kin go hungry even when he does not know these cousins yet.

Dropping to all his paws with relief, Hiccup scrambles into the darkness of the cave, twining past the dragon-cousins snatching hungrily at the fish. It closes in around him like an enveloping wing, secure and welcome and warm, and the tension of tame fires and human eyes and the ever-hissing voices falls away from his shoulders as he follows his instincts to hide.

The sound of the cage slamming closed behind him does not disturb him – the latch is simple, and there are gaps between the metal of the cage like a net that are easy to reach a paw through again.

Furiously, he tears at the knot in the cloak, ripping at it and fighting until it can be wriggled away from and kicked aside. Free of the hateful pretending at last, Hiccup puts his shoulder to the ground and rolls as he would in the brightest and warmest sun, stretching and savoring the scents of dragons all around, painting his scale-skins with the scents like colors.

To be _himself_ again is a relief so physical it knocks him to the ground and leaves him prone and gasping, tasting the musk of dragons on his tongue like stolen honey, all the stings of staring human eyes and awkward human movements and exposed human paws still sore but the treat a delight. The familiarity of being among his own people again, seeing them push each other for food and snap and snarl without fangs scraping scales, only in show and playing, casting shadows that tangle together, silences for a time the voices still hissing at the corners of his thinking.

The way they move, the smell, the warmth, the faint light dripping into the long low cave from many netted cave-mouths but leaving many hollows and corners and hiding places in darkness – he wants to lie down and purr and not move.

He rejoices in small sounds, humming _good yes yes yes good here good happy good pleased relief relief stre-e-e-e-e-tch happy this me happy safe easy calm peace good good_ , mimicking the sounds Toothless should be here to make with him.

At once he rolls back to his feet and sits up, batting at the air as if calling for attention and whistles _Tt-th-ss?_ hopefully.

But no familiar cry answers his signal, and Toothless is not here to race to his side.

Disappointed – but not heartbroken, it is healing to be among dragons again, even if they are strangers – Hiccup settles back and whimpers _Toothless-dear-one no no here no sad sad lonely me lonely Toothless-mine where no? where? sad me sad resignation sorrow_.

And then he turns his face up to the dragons here and whistles greeting-signals, saying _hello hello friendly me look hello no-threat me here you hello small me friendly!_

Many heads of all different shapes come up, torn bits of fish dripping from their jaws, and many eyes of many different colors turn to look at the stranger in their midst, their attention drawn by his sounds.

Hiccup expects to be challenged as a stranger, expects to be threatened and told not to steal their food and their nests, expects that he will be met with suspicion and curiosity.

When the eyes turned towards him go wide with horror and fear it is a blow worse than a lightning-strike, sharper than fangs closed around his chest and biting deep.

 _Fear!_ one of the dragons shrieks, voice trembling as much as her tail. _No no no scared afraid danger danger no no no sorry submit sorry sorry me sorry bad me down me scared no no!_

The others take up her cries, whimpering and retreating, coiling away and hiding behind each other, crouching in submission and terror, until all the cave is echoing with their fear and Hiccup's whistle of _confusion_ is lost.

And then someone cries _human!_

 _Human human no no no scared sorry sorry danger human scared,_ the flock screams, scrambling to get away, hiding behind the ones who have thrown themselves down and defenseless and dug their jaws into the sand so that they cannot bite.

Shocked and dismayed beyond signals, beyond sounds, beyond thinking, Hiccup recoils, swaying as if struck. If every dragon in the cave had pounced at him and cuffed him away he could not have been more wounded, more lost.

The fear of his cousins is his nightmare, and he wonders if he is dreaming, if all of this, all the pain and loss and confusion and fear, has been a dream, one that he cannot escape. He struggles to wake, reaching for the waking that must be. If he can wake from this dream will he find Toothless warm against his spine, Hiccup's skull resting against the bigger dragon's heart so that his stronger pulse follows him even into dreams?

But the roaring of sound in his ears is his own heartbeat, not Toothless', racing in confusion and horror, and the moaning of the frightened dragon-cousins.

 _No!_ Hiccup roars a denial, burying his _stupid_ human paws in the thin sand to hide them. He cries the sound his flock makes for themselves that is the name for all of them all at once, and the cry they make for other dragons. _No-threat!_ he insists. _Please please please me friendly good me dragon yes yes we-together we us dragon yes please!_

They will not listen, and they whimper as if the little dragon is a great and terrible enemy. Some throw themselves to the sand, insisting _small no-danger submit submit submit_ , and others spread their wings and make themselves big, finding their courage and growling _go-away you human danger threat you danger me bite yes warning danger human_.

Taken aback, Hiccup snarls, falling through horror and finding his footing again in anger. _Dragon!_ he persists. _Me me me dragon yes dragon yes certain-sure dragon!_

He bares his fangs and growls assertively, holding his ground against the much bigger dragon now advancing on him. He knows that the quick-leaping dragon-cousin is only defending his friends, but to surrender to the things that they are saying would be the end of him and all that he is.

To have humans see him as human was uncomfortable and itchy and a dirty sticky want-to-wash feeling, grating at him like sand trapped between scales and soft-skin. But to have dragons see him as human is _wrong_.

There are things Hiccup will give up when he has to. He will go hungry when he must, when there is no food or not enough for all. He will destroy in a moment a tool he has spent all winter making if it will free a flock-mate from a trap. He will let a dragon-cousin run away with and keep a much-loved toy if the fight to reclaim it is not worth the squabble.

Who he is – that is a thing not to be thrown away and forgotten. He is Toothless' always-and-forever companion, _(click)-phuh_ who is half of _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ , travelers and explorers loyal to the king of ice, a dragon of the king's flock, Cloudjumper's child as much so and more as he is the son of his long-forgotten mother, _a dragon a dragon a dragon_. It is a treasured thing he will never let go.

So he rises to his back paws ready to fight and raises his paws as if they were his lost claws, curling them as if they might bite and cut deep with a sharp slash. He catches up his wings and flares them to make himself bigger although the purple quick-leaper is bigger than even _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ together would be, and advances to show that he is not afraid, that he will not be driven away, that he will not let this stranger tell him that he does not belong and send him away.

 _Dragon!_ he howls assertively, stomping a back paw and gesturing to keep his balance and stay steady, poised to pounce. _Yes me yes yes dragon me –_

And then he hears the snarl in his voice, sees the way the cousins the quick-leaper is protecting cower away from him, imagines how the confrontation must look, to other eyes.

He remembers the way that the Knotted Man had howled at Toothless, roaring _submit!_ The Knotted Man spoke in the way of dragons by being louder and fiercer, asserting his dominance as the Alpha, and _he_ – he looked human, but spoke as dragons do, but only in shouting.

Hiccup has a natural gift for empathy, and the way he was raised – the language he speaks, the society he lives in and understands intuitively, his bond with Toothless – have enhanced that gift to great heights, so that seeing through the eyes of other dragons comes as readily to him as his form of speech.

He sees past his own horror, to theirs.

When he roars a refusal, a denial, a scream of _no!_ it is to himself, and the claws that slash at the air are at his own rage, pulling imaginary fire back from the space between dragon-feral and quick-leaper.

He is a dragon, and all who love him and know him know this, and it is their eyes that matter, not those of strangers. He is _real_ , and no denial can change that, and _he will not be the Knotted Man!_

All of his desire to fight fades like smoke, flaring away and dying into dark ashes, and Hiccup collapses to the ground in a surrender so unconditional he can do nothing but whimper.

 _Sorry_ , he cries. _Sorry sorry sorry no-fight sorry me me sorry me small small sorry stupid me stupid sorry sad sad sad_.

Prostrate in the sand, he hunches his shoulders and trembles, and rolls over, baring his stomach and throat, entirely at their mercy.

He is saying _no threat_ as loud and as clearly as he can.

When the brave quick-leaper pounces on him and pins him there with one sharp-tipped paw Hiccup does not fight back. He raises his paws towards angry, staring eyes, and crooks them like claws – and then clenches them, hiding those claws, and lowers them again.

And he raises his jaw, and closes his eyes, and waits.

A human would be upset and afraid. A human would shout, and thrash, and struggle.

Hiccup is a dragon, and he understands the way of a fight among dragons.

 _You?_ Brave One chirrs finally, puzzlement clear in his voice. _You?_

Brave One's claws are sharp against him, but Hiccup purrs, insisting quietly, _dragon_.

A new voice hums _curious_ , and a nose nudges against him, a tongue flickering out to taste him. _You?_ that voice echoes.

Slowly other dragons come forward, and Brave One takes his claws away so that others can touch and smell and taste and stare at the strange little dragon in their midst, all humming _You?_

Hiccup stays down and unthreatening until a paw pushes his shoulder, urging him up, and only then does he rise to an easy seat, keeping his paws low. A nose taps against his skull, huffing a breath against his fur to make it tickle, and in response he ducks his head and nudges it under that jaw like a hatchling asking to be petted and cared for. He wrinkles his nose when a broad tongue laps at his face, shaking off most of the wet but not squawking a protest. When sharp teeth wrap around his foreleg he lets them hold it without fear – he has surrendered unconditionally, he is theirs to explore.

But every touch is a bright spot of warmth and comfort, a gulp of cold water in great thirst, and he shudders with the strength of the purring running through him like waves. When another dragon takes up the thrumming sound he reaches out unerringly and lays his free paw on her side, joining them together.

He is overjoyed to be among dragons again, and from her hum he knows that they are beginning to accept him. Tentatively, he reclaims his foreleg from still-gentle jaws and pushes into the crowd, introducing himself to the ones who have not come in reach of him yet with his body-scent and _whuff_ s of breath and the touch of his paws.

His clever paws have always been good for petting dragons, and he scratches scales and wraps around forelegs and carefully traces the textures of skin, brushing them across spines and claws and gently across the soft points of noses and eyes and jaws.

It is a squawk amidst a humming song when his paws find wounds, whip-lashes and old sores and claw marks.

The first time he touches by mistake a fresh whip-cut, he pulls away, whimpering _sorry hurt this you sorry sympathy_ , but he does not hesitate to reach out again. Dragons lick wounds like any animal, and Hiccup has learned to do so too, distinguishing the warmth of healing from the heat of sickness and the uncomfortable taste of old-but-healing flesh from poison-in-wound.

All the dragons of this caged flock swarm around him, fascinated more than their fear, and seeing in their braver friends that the panic is over, the threat is gone or never there. They find no spitting and snarling and hissing and fighting of a stranger-intruder. All of Hiccup's signals are saying _happy happy happy happy_ over and over again.

No true human could pretend that so absolutely, especially not one of the ruthless harsh fighters that hold power here under the rule of the Knotted Man.

At last all the flock agrees that Hiccup is small and different and new, that his scents and the mixture of touches in him are strange, but he behaves as a dragon does, so he must be a dragon, and he offers no threat, and he is friendly, so he is welcome here.

 _Toothless here_? Hiccup asks, when all have settled down again in the half-darkness.

Brave One shrugs, chirping a question. _Who? Don't-know._

Hiccup hums thoughtfully, thinking about how to describe Toothless to them. _This_ , he says finally, tapping his black scales. They were Toothless' scales first, but dragon and dragon-feral share all things, and Toothless was not using them anymore when he shed them, so it is right that Hiccup should wear them as well.

But no one has seen a dragon with scales like that, and many shoulders shrug and wings rustle and eyes turn away.

 _You friendly!_ Hiccup says instead, biting back disappointment again and thinking of other things. He will still find Toothless, but he cannot leave this place yet. He does not want to go out among humans again.

And there was the last human pushing the rolling-thing. What if he comes out into the metal cave? Hiccup did not see him go away again.

 _Others_ , he gestures outward, _threaten ignore they don't-like_ – this last a shudder of distaste. But these dragons are different – they are afraid, but they can be brave, and they can purr. The dragons that bowed to the Knotted Man acted like they had forgotten how to purr, and they looked at nothing.

 _Fierce!_ Twisted Pawsays, raising his head and making signs and snarls and faces of great aggression. _Fierce_ _them yes yes dangerous amazed good them fierce good fierce._

 _Here no-good_ , gestures Dark Splotch, _bad us stupid us bad here waste_. She illustrates by kicking a back paw as if burying mess, but kicks One Eye by mistake. Her leg has a great bite taken out of it, and the muscles do not go the way she wants them to, so One Eye merely heaves a sigh and turns his head all the way around to watch her more carefully.

Hiccup does not understand, warbling _puzzlement_.

 _Us bad,_ many voices agree, shoulders slumping and throats sighing.

One yawns _tired_ and shows with her body how hard it is to rise and move even a little way, even when her flock-mate stalks around and pushes her, trying to make her go.

 _This_ , Dark Splotch noses at the torn place in her leg, and _this_ with a sharp tap against One Eye's blindness.

 _Small us small submit no-fight no-threat_ , gestures Broken Horns, rolling over and baring his soft places, cowering into the sand.

The dragon-feral sits up from where he is curled in the sand all tangled with Brave One and Twisted Paw and Deep Scars and Claw Marks, pulling away even as Short Nose tries to lick at his scale-skins again, grooming him like a new hatchling with his scales still wet. He yips _confusion_ still, tipping his head to the side as if their signals will make more sense sideways. _Bad?_ he asks.

 _Lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely_ , a new voice wails, soft and whimpering, and Hiccup moves without thought, coiling out from the paws resting on his back to race to her side and howl with her, because her cries are the sounds the emptiness inside him is making always. Her head comes up and she looks all around, coming to attention and showing _listen!_ and at once she slumps again, making small sounds of _disappointment_ that the sound she is searching for is not there.

But Hiccup has seen her in the light from beyond the nets now, and he cries out in sudden delight, because he knows her, recognizes the whip-cuts across her muzzle even though he wishes the whip had never bitten her, had seen her hurting and wished her all his small strength to support hers.

She had been too tired to pull the terrible biting trap like a hill all of metal with great jaws, and the humans of the Knotted Man had taken her away, and Hiccup had feared that she would be punished more.

 _You here you you you good good good happy yes relief you good!_ he wriggles all over with the joy of knowing that she lives, patting at her nose as she lowers it to him, puzzled.

 _Tired you up-there_ , he gestures, tracing out the lines of the harness that had been wrapped around her chest. _Hurting hurting you sorry sorry hurting?_ He is careful not to touch the marks that still cut through her scales. _Worried_ , he tells her, and purrs to see interest and curiosity spark in her eyes.

Tentatively, she nudges his smaller body with her nose, and he turns until he can place the soft-skin of his face against her new scars, warming them.

 _Lonely_ , she whimpers, and Hiccup cries it back to her, missing Toothless, wishing his dragon-beloved was here to see her too.

 _Fighting,_ Brave One says, staring through the metal nets to the pretend cave all of metal outside. _Fierce them fierce yes us small hurting scared_ …

Many dragons come to Hiccup, then, showing him _this_ and _this_ and _this_ and _this_ , all scars, the marks of dragon claws and dragon fangs on them.

 _Fighting_ , they say, resigned. _Fierce_.

And over and over, _us bad_ and _small us_.

From their stories Hiccup understands that dragons are being told to fight dragons, that the dragons of this flock kept locked in this cave are here because they are not good enough, that they have been rejected, that they are not strong enough to fight back, that they cannot be part of the greater flock because they are not fierce enough or wounded too deeply. He learns that Weary She is listening for a voice that will not speak to her anymore, that has closed its jaw and looked away and turned its tail to her because she failed to do as it commanded, because she disappointed it, and he shakes with fury.

 _No_ , he denies, trying to snarl and to purr all at once because both are true, telling them that they are not bad. He likes them. They have been kind to him, they were ready to fight when they were afraid but then they accepted him, and he cannot understand why they should be pushed aside because they are wounded or tired.

It is a terrible wrongness.

One Eye rubs their faces together and hums, a crackling half-remembered sound not often used. _Good you_ , he says. _Liking_.

But in all the dragons here Hiccup can see resignation and acceptance and weariness too great to fight. Even if he opened all the latches of their cage and let them go, they would not flee. They are too afraid of the bright cave all of metal, because that is where the fierce ones are.

And where would they go? In the tunnels there are many humans, and big dragons cannot be hidden under covering fabrics. They cannot pretend as Hiccup can.

Troubled, Hiccup wavers, shifting on his paws uncertainly. He knows that he is welcome to stay with them for now, to settle beside them among the warmth of many heart-fires in the safety of half-darkness, even though he is of another flock.

He wonders about the fierce ones, the fighters, but the dragons here will not tell him anything more. They are afraid of even the sound of fierceness, flinching around old wounds and bright scars and shrinking away from the metal nets and the cave beyond.

Peering out through one of the nets – all of them open on the same bright cave – Hiccup sees it as a jaw full of fire, with sharp fangs and a dark throat beyond, the tunnel where the rolling thing went, where the fierce ones come from to fight in the scuffed-up sand of the cave.

Toothless is fierce, and a fighter. If his Toothless- _love_ is not here, maybe he is there, where the fierce ones are.

But he cannot imagine Toothless as one of the terrible monsters that his many new friends are so afraid of. Toothless would never attack these dragons who have never harmed him.

Hiccup snarls back at the jaws of the cave and its hungry throat. If it has swallowed Toothless, then he will race down its throat and tear at its belly from inside until it sicks Toothless up as something not-to-eat.

For now he settles at the side of Weary She, keening with anxiety and longing. He imagines that he is close enough to Toothless that he can almost reach out and touch, but his paws cannot quite reach to find him in the dark.

 _Good?_ one of the dragons here asks, butting her head into Hiccup's chest. _Me?_

 _Good_ , he promises her, petting and scratching under her jaw, and her shoulders come up in excitement and her tail waves happily, flaring her crest to show more of her colors.

 _Good good good me good yes good good_ , she says proudly, and there is joy in her steps when she trots over to Twisted Paw to tell him that she is _good good good_.

As Hiccup waits and watches the cave beyond, many other dragons come to him to ask, and he reassures them all that they are not bad, that they are not forgotten, that they are not alone. It helps them, he can see. They stand taller. They purr louder, or remember how to. They groom themselves more. Their eyes are bright again.

Knowing that he must wait until he is _sure_ that the last human has left and is not still in the throat-tunnel where fierce ones are, he huffs at himself to be patient and careful in mimicry of Toothless' sounds because Toothless is not here to make them. While others watch for him, eager to help their new friend as long as they do not have to go out into the place they fear, he scavenges in the place where the fish had been, finding scraps that had fallen from hungry jaws when the forgotten flock startled at him. He explores the cave to know the space of it and the feeling of its walls.

As he does he finds that the gritty touch of sand gives way to the wood of the ship and the stickiness of ship-tar that bleeds from it, melting a bit in the warmth of dragons.

The cave and the flock are almost like home, and the familiarity of it sets him free to think of new things, and when a new thought strikes him he stops with his soft-claws a breath away from the sticky tar. He turns the thought all over in the darkness behind his eyes, closing them to see it better, and puts together the making he wants to do to set a wrong thing right again.

Dark Splotch is happy to move aside to let the light past her when Hiccup asks with a whistle and a gesture, and she stares in puzzlement and interest as Hiccup hunts through his pockets. Many more eyes turn to him as he does, watching him with fascination as if he were a bright flame in a dark cave, or a quick fish when all are hungry, or a hatchling full of joy at running when there is no need for bigger dragons to run.

He cannot make his claws again, not here, and to make dragon-claws again would take time. But he is tired of his paws as they are.

So he makes a pile of the scales he found on the empty island, where there was sun and Toothless- _soul-love_ and no fear yet, not true fear, and he scrapes the melting tar from the side of the cave.

He paints the stickiness of it across the backs of his paws, and covers all the stickiness with dragon-scales. He waits unmoving until the tar has dried, and then his paws are _dragon_ paws again, so that when he moves them the scales rasp together but the pads of them are still soft to touch and his soft-claws can still flex and bend and wrap around things.

 _Dragon_ , Hiccup tells his captivated audience, raising his paws to be looked at without hesitation, without doubt, without shame, and drops his jaw in a laugh.

Pretending is over, and they will do, for now.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	13. Chapter 13

_**Stormfall,**_ **Part Thirteen**

Maybe he's out of his mind, but crazy seems to be the order of the day and the way of things, and after much thought – not to be confused with sulking, fuming, arguing with himself, getting drawn into a fight he was then blamed for, and staring at various bulkheads – Eret has decided that he much prefers Astrid's type of crazy to Drago's.

This is probably one of his less than amazing ideas, then, but he's certainly had worse. And Eret wants out. Out and away from here, out for good and for real.

He's done with it. He's done with Drago and his army and his relentless war. He's done with Vikings. He may even be done with dragons, if there's some other work he and his crew can turn their hands to. He'll catch seven types of screaming from the rest of the clan, if it ever gets back to them that Eret, son of Eret, wants to turn his back on generations of his family's work and be something else, but even his grandmother's scathing disappointment – and Eret would much rather get into an argument with a Skrill than with his grandmother – is starting to seem preferable to the vast armada lumbering its way northward.

He doesn't know what he's going to be. Dragon hunting is all he knows. But he'd like the chance to go and find out.

Thanks to a particularly lucky few casts in last night's illicit pebble game (and no, he did not cheat…much) he's cadged a place on one of the little boats that swarm among the bigger ones moving food and weapons and supplies and people from ship to ship. Eret tries to catch a glimpse of the horizon between the ships of the fleet and wonders how he's going to convince the Vikings that he wants to change sides.

Again.

Damn. He wouldn't believe himself.

Even Drago Bludvist cannot crush rumor, it seems, and rumor suggests that Astrid and her weird passel of dragon-riders are still aboard the flagship. It's taken him a while to get close, hopping rides and making guesses, weaving closer and closer when he's been lucky and going in circles when he hasn't, and it's frustrating. If there's some order to it, none of it makes any sense to him, and no one is telling him.

It's only served to remind him how much he isn't wanted here.

Finally aboard, Eret moves cautiously across the armored ship, skirting the mounted weapons and dodging out of the way of a troop of men trotting across the deck in step. He's pretty sure they would have run right over him, if he hadn't.

"Hey," he asks the nearest man, who is strapping armor onto a lanky dragon that looks straight ahead, fixed in place. "Seen the Vikings from Berk anywhere?"

The soldier looks at him like he's waving his arms in the air and talking nonsense. "None of my business," he mutters finally. "Got to get this fixed right away."

Eret leaves him to it, glancing across the fleet as he does so. From one of the nearby ships, one of the huge, big-bellied, deep-keeled ones – but not nearly as much so as the flagship, which is the biggest thing Eret has ever seen on the water and a sight bigger than plenty of things on land – a cloud of dragons erupts from nowhere, as if they'd leapt from the sea into the sky. Whirling and fluttering, they settle into a holding pattern above their ship, escorting it as it moves, and a ragged cheer echoes across the water.

"Blast!" someone spits. "Quick work." He goes on to approve some kind of reward, which Eret takes to mean that there's some kind of race going on. But a race to do what, exactly? Launch dragons?

The sound of that is all too familiar, and Eret doesn't like the reminder of it. As a second flight of dragons takes off from another ship, merging with the first lot to the accompaniment of jeering shouts from the winners to the runners-up, it sounds like how he came to work for Drago Bludvist to begin with. And _that_ is probably one of Eret's greatest regrets.

If he could undo the past, he'd go back and stand beside his father to drive off the dragon that had nearly burned the elder Eret to ashes and had left him with a life of scars and pain and nightmares that he would never speak of. He'd remember to check Armann's safety line before he went over that cliff in pursuit of a rogue Changewing that hadn't been nearly worth losing a friend over – the damnfool idiot never could tie a knot properly. He'd listen this time to everyone who had told him that Kelda was bad news – which he'd known, but damn!

And he'd turn and run seven leagues in a step from the small settlement that had hired him to get rid of a flock of dragons plaguing them.

The chieftain hadn't told him that, a month before, just before the raids started, she'd turned away the leader of a fleet of unusual ships. She hadn't mentioned that when Drago (for it had been Drago, of course it had been Drago) had demanded more than they could spare to resupply his ships, she'd refused to starve her people to feed his. She hadn't said that she'd turned him away because they didn't need his help, that they rarely had problems with dragons, that she wasn't afraid of dragons. She hadn't said anything about the foreign warlord storming off muttering that she'd regret standing in his way.

After a month of problems, she'd put the dragon raiders down to bad luck rather than malice. Wheels turn. Fates change, she'd told Eret with a shrug, willing to accept the raids as just their turn for something to go wrong. The gods hear boasting, she'd said wryly, and she'd taken the blame on herself for bragging of their peace.

She should have been more afraid, Eret knows now. She should have seen Drago's point and admitted that dragons were a problem she couldn't handle, whether that was truth or lie. If she'd been willing to let her people go hungry for a season, Eret and his crew wouldn't have returned from yet another fruitless search for the new nest to find the entire settlement burned, and their harbor so full of heavy dark ships that they could have ringed the island easily, had they been spread out.

Drago's army had been picking through the wreckage for what the warlord wanted, and he'd taken Eret and his crew as well.

Drago had laughed, then – not a real laugh, barely more than a twisted grunt that might, with some imagination, have been mistaken for amusement.

"There are your renegades, trapper," he'd said, pointing to a mixed lot of dragons standing passively in the midst of it all. And he'd picked up a barrel of fish, and thrown it under their noses. Even when it had smashed open and scattered fish everywhere, still they had stayed unmoving, until the warlord shouted wordlessly at them, and only then had they claimed their reward.

"I can always use dragon wranglers," Drago had decided. "Whatever these fools were paying for you, I'll double it if you can bring me your prey alive. Fail me, and you can join them."

Eret had not been consulted.

He'd been too scared to run, then, and that Eret regrets most of all.

If he had, he wouldn't be in the middle of the army now, as they deploy for war.

He's so busy staring up at the growing cloud of dragons, knowing deep inside that it's too late, that he missed his chance to get away, that he was a top-ranked idiot to even consider trying to escape something this terrible, that he doesn't notice the person creeping up behind him until something sharp pokes into his lower back.

"Freeze, miserable turncoat!" Ruffnut growls. "Or I'll really regret what happens next."

* * *

Astrid spent most of last night worrying about Hiccup, the Wildfire having vanished as expected somewhere into the depths of the fleet. Despite her hopes, he never returned.

So there's a cold eerie clarity to the new day as she thinks of all she saw yesterday as Drago's lieutenants escorted her from ship to ship showing off to her. Of the machines designed to stun dragons with sound, powered by a captive Thunderdrum each, she can only imagine what would happen to anything else unfortunate enough to be in their line of fire. She saw nets big enough to ensnare a ship, but so close-woven out of the thinnest Gronkle iron wire that they could take down an entire flock of dragons like a single hand swatting them out of the sky. And then there were the harnesses, still in development, for aquatic dragons; the weapons master in charge of that project said they would be put to drawing the ships so that the fleet wouldn't need fair winds or good currents to travel anywhere they wanted.

And now, she watches the army gathering above, circling and milling, unnerving and menacing.

Their silence is the worst part, perhaps. The dragons back home are loud all the time, and when they'd attacked, they'd done so with growls and screams, even their fires howling.

"Look at them all," Fishlegs breathes, half in awe and half in fear. As more and more dragons take to the air, so too have her friends come to join her, banding together as if the five of them could stand against the growing army circling above them.

Astrid is so sorry for getting them into this, but she's proud of them, too, prouder than she ever would have expected. They've risen to the challenge like heroes, trusting her bluff and running with it, and she'd like to call them her friends if she gets a chance – yes, even Snotlout, on the condition that he never puts a hand near her. In the past few days they've more than made up for all the headaches they've given her over the years.

She only hopes they get the chance, somehow, to give her many more headaches in the future.

"Where's Ruffnut?" she asks now, wanting to have all her friends where she can see them.

Tuffnut shrugs, busy gaping at the army along with everyone else. He's still wide-eyed with amazement, though, as if he hasn't figured out that this is what's going to burn Berk to the waterline in the near future. "She was here a minute ago. Said she was gonna go fetch something. It had better be tasty. Or explode in a really fun way."

"Yeah," Astrid agrees, voice cracking in her throat. "Explosions would be good right now."

"Really?"

He sounds so pleased. "Yeah," she can only repeat.

"Great, because you know that closet full of –"

"Hey!" Snotlout interrupts him. "You!"

"Me?"

"No, idiot! _Him!_ "

"Hey guys, look what I caught!" Ruffnut says, grinning fiercely as she marches Eret across the deck, skirting that oversized hatch that none of them want to walk over lest it drop out from under them unexpectedly. She holds her captive at the point of…okay, it's a sharp stick, but from the way Eret is shrinking away from it, sending him into an odd hobble, it's possible he doesn't know that.

 _Attagirl_ , it's worth more than Astrid's life to say.

"Well, well," Snotlout gloats. "It's the bait fish. Know what happens to little bait fish? They get eaten. Or they sit around stinking. And either way, they're dead!"

Eret puts his hands up, convincing no one. "Can we all yell at me later? I'll even stand still and let you. This isn't what I wanted."

"Really?" Astrid folds her arms and glares at him. "That's not what it looks like to me. Looks like you sold us all – and our dragons – to your master and got away with it, until Ruffnut jabbed you with a stick. Nice catch, Ruff."

Ruffnut laughs maniacally. Eret whips around and stares at her and her stick.

"You said I'd regret moving!"

"No, I said I would." She crosses her eyes at him. "Then you'd run away, and I'd really regret that. You're a slimeball, but you're still cute. Duh."

Eret changes the subject _fast_. Some other time, Astrid would be amused. "I mean it. I don't want anything more to do with this."

"So what are you going to do about it?" Astrid challenges, irritated. "Did you come all this way to apologize to us? Because it's a little late for that, and we have more important things to worry about."

"Yeah, like that!" As Fishlegs points, another flight of dragons joins the others, casting shadows over the deck of the ship and all the people on it as they wheel and turn and settle into a sort of loose formation. "Oh, gods, I don't recognize any of those…"

"And keep your voice down," Astrid warns him, glaring at her friends as well to remind them. "We're being watched."

Eret lowers his voice to a hissing whisper that makes everyone lean in to hear him, much as Astrid doesn't want to hear anything he has to say. Ruffnut, on the other hand, crowds in close, and jabs him with the stick when he tries to get away.

"I can't believe this bluff of yours worked! Ow! Stoppit! Do you have any idea what Drago will do –?"

"Yes, I'm getting the idea," Astrid cuts him off. "Shut up and get to your point before I set Ruffnut loose with hers."

"I want a stick," says Tuffnut. "Hey, sis, where'd you get the stick? Are there more?"

Eret flinches, not without cause. "Look," he says, with none of the half-hidden mockery and rampant arrogance they'd all gotten used to hearing in his voice on the trip here, "I like your world better. It's weird but at least it didn't hate me. Well, before. I'm pretty sure you all hate me by now."

"I'm considering it," Astrid replies coolly. "So, for the second and last time, _what_ are you gonna do about it?"

He bites his lip, looks around for eavesdroppers, and volunteers, "I can take you to your dragons."

At her elbow, Fishlegs makes a delighted squeak, muffled by the hands he's clapped over his own mouth. "Really?" he says through them. "They're all right? My babies? Minnow and Dark Deep? And the others, too?"

"Yeah, I managed to talk some people into not…well, never mind. They're not happy, but they're not hurt, your dragons. You're welcome. So have you seen enough? Believe me now about what you're facing here? Isn't that what you wanted, to look and understand and then go home?"

"And I suppose you want us to take you with us," Snotlout scoffs before Astrid can say much the same thing.

Eret looks torn. "My ship…" he starts before trailing off, chewing on his bottom lip as he thinks frantically. Astrid can see him weighing the options, trying to decide. He really loves that ship. But there's no way he can sail it out of here by himself without being caught, and if he really can get their dragons back – Stormfly! Her heart leaps in her chest at the thought of seeing her friend again, cutting through the despair falling across her like dragon shadows – there's no way her riders are doing anything but flying for the horizon as quick as their friends' wings will take them.

Finally, as another ship releases its cargo of dragons, he says, "All I want is _out_ , okay? I'm not part of this. I'm not part of Drago's war. I've never believed in his mad crusade, I'm just doing a job! But I didn't see any alternative. Not until I saw your weird mixed-up Berk. I never imagined dragons and humans could get along, just like that, just because they _are_ getting along. I don't know how you do it."

Astrid wonders too, sometimes. It's not just that Hiccup's leviathan of a dragon-chief told all the dragons to behave themselves. They could have avoided each other, afterwards. The dragons could have left Berk and never come back, which was what Astrid had wanted all her life.

But instead they chose to live together. Maybe that's on her. She and Stormfly were almost friends, by then. Maybe the two sides understood in some way that they could help each other. Certainly they're stronger together, now. Maybe it's because Stoick wants to win back his son, even a little, and if inviting the dragons into their home was what it took, then that was what Stoick was going to do. Oh, she knows about that. She was the one to tell him, more than once, that the chief will never be able to separate the once-human boy from the dragons he so loves.

 _Wildfire_. Stoick will go spare.

And the thing is, it doesn't always work. Feelings get hurt – and people, too – and things get broken. But they've all seen too much of war to seek it out without cause, and they have so much more to gain in working together.

"Because we're willing to try," she says instead. "Because trying to coexist has to be better than trying to kill each other, even if it's not perfect. Because as long as everyone understands that, we might start to make a better world."

Eret shakes his head, baffled. "I'm never going to understand you. But I don't have to, right? I'm not one of you. You don't care what happens to me. I threw that overboard well and good. Yeah. Okay. If I can get you to your dragons, you have to get me out of here. Deal?"

There's nothing more they can do here, Astrid knows. She trusts Drago with her story the way she'd trust a patch of black ice over swift water. Wherever the fleet is going, however gracelessly they're doing so, they still might have time to get back to Berk with all they've learned.

But it breaks her heart, to break her promise. The idea of leaving Hiccup here, lost somewhere, when she'd told him that she'd find Toothless for him, when the trust between them is so fragile – even if by some miracle he survives, he will never forgive her, and she will have lost her friend.

There's bile in her throat, at the thought. It's her duty to warn Berk about this menace unlike anything they've ever faced before. No dragon war, no half-cracked Berserker raid, no Outcast attack has done anything to prepare them for Drago's army.

Her friends look at her, waiting for her to make a decision, and she's so proud of them she thinks it must be glowing in her face like a flame.

And in that, because of them, she knows what she must do if she's to stand in Valhalla with her honor shining, even if that day is sooner than she'd thought.

"Deal," she says. "Get us to our dragons. And get these guys away from here."

"Wait, what?" Tuffnut says, and the others chorus much the same.

"I wouldn't leave one of you guys here on your own. Hiccup should have been one of us, and I promised him I'd find Toothless. Don't argue with me! Do as you're told, for once in your lives, all of you! Everything you've seen and heard here, everything we've learned – get that home! Tell Stoick I promised Eret a new ship. We stole a bunch of them off Dagur and the Berserkers anyway, and it'll be good camouflage for him so he and his crew can get away. They won't stand out as much, on a Viking ship."

"You're staying?" Eret splutters, staring. "You're serious! You – are – _crazy!_ "

At that, she can smile, even if it's a shade forced. "You better believe it. But you're getting me to Stormfly first. Now come on, let's get…" Her voice trails off, as she looks up from their huddle.

"– out…of…here… Oh."

With all of them focused on Eret, and the chance he's offered them to escape, she realizes, who _exactly_ has been keeping an eye out for the eavesdroppers and spies that have been following them everywhere, listening for some flaw in her story so they can run back to their master and tell tales?

No one.

And the dragon army in the skies is suddenly much, much less threatening than the armed men cornering them, and Drago Bludvist leaning on his hooked staff, smiling like a shark that's learned to walk out of the ocean and follow its prey home.

"We are _so_ totally busted," Ruffnut says in a very small voice.

She always hates it when one of the twins is right about something.

A moment ago Astrid was filled with hope. Even if she wasn't going to get away from here, bound by her promise as she is, her friends would. And she was going to see Stormfly again, even if she was going to ask Stormfly to stay with her, to fight by her side, to help their wild friends together.

That was a dream, she knows now. That was the last shred of warmth the gods grant to someone freezing to death – an illusion, but a comfort.

All she can do, now, is fail with dignity, and with honor. Even those gods will fail, at the end of things, but they will tear their foes with them as they go.

So she doesn't run, and, following her lead still, her friends stay at her back. Even Eret doesn't try to switch sides yet again. Maybe he'd been sincere, about getting out. That hope withers and shrinks to disappointment and sorrow that whatever protection their dragons had, since Eret was looking out for them, is gone, and that they will be fed into the maw of this army. But still she holds her head up.

She wishes she hadn't brought her friends to this place with her. She should have taken Stormfly, and gotten a direction from Eret, and trusted to the wind to blow them the same way as the fleet. She wishes she hadn't brought any of them, human or dragon.

She wishes Drago Bludvist into the frozen wastes of the deepest halls of the dishonored dead at the end of time, while she's at it.

"Did you imagine," the warlord growls, "that you were the first to come to me and _lie?_ Great kings have come to me and pledged alliance, little girl, tithing me a portion of their armies to continue my work. And then there are people like you. Mice roaring like lions. But _you!_ "

His staff slams into the deck, snapping like a whip and cracking like thunder. "You sentimental, naïve little barbarian. You think you can live in peace with dragons as equals?" He spits the word like a curse. "They have deceived you. Dragons cannot be tamed, except by force, and your lies will be the ruin of your entire world. What do you imagine will happen if your lies spread, lulling people into a dream of safety, only to wake and find monsters in their beds? You and your people are worse than dragons. They are destroyers, but you are traitors."

"No!" Astrid shouts back at him, finally, unable to listen to his poison any longer. It feels like breathing after being trapped underwater, held down by the wreckage of a ship that fell keel from beam and wrapped ropes around her ankles, dragging her down.

Standing up to him feels like freedom.

"You're wrong," she says, feeling the sun on her face again as she rises from those depths. "You are _so_ wrong. We can. And we do!"

She is _proud_ of Berk. Proud of what they've made it into, this past year. She defended the old way of things because she had no other choice, but the new way is hers. She chooses it. She will stand for it, waving it like a banner, and never, never, be ashamed that they are different.

Not if that means being different from someone like _this_.

"You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. It doesn't have to be this way. They're people too. Dragons may not be exactly like us but they're close enough – they're a different shape but when we just tried –"

Drago roars like she's struck him, and the point of his staff is at her throat so quickly she couldn't have recoiled even if she'd wanted to. But she refuses to back down before him.

"They are animals," he snarls, low and deep and disgusted. "The moment something stronger comes along, everything you've deceived yourself into believing will snap. You are feeding your people to monsters, little girl, as you tell them everything is fine. You have lied to them. I am going to save them from dragons, and I am going to save them from you too."

 _No!_ Astrid wants to howl, louder than ever, because his words mean that she has failed, because they mean that he is turning his eyes to Berk, now. Maybe he was always going to get around to them, as soon as his army had devoured everything else in its path, but it feels like her fault. This is on her. She got his attention, and then she told him everything he needed to know.

She can't let him turn against Berk, but she will not beg. "You don't want to do this," she says, locking calm and conviction into her voice lest it shake. It would be rage that rattles her throat, not fear. "We're not worth it."

Still with his spear at her throat, resting on her breastbone, Drago sneers at her. "If you're so pitiful, girl, what's to stop me?"

Something snaps inside her, and the world goes very clear, like the charmed moments in battle when she can't put a foot wrong, where everything is so, so simple. As if she could run forever, every breath and step a prayer and a dance.

"No," says Astrid, "you don't understand."

There is an army above her and another all around, and five – no, six – lives in her hands right now, and the lives of their dragons as well, and those of everyone she loves, back on Berk, and everyone she can't stand, too, but they are her people as well.

For them, the truth flows from her like a spell.

"I don't want to go to war with you. But not because you're big and scary and crazy, or because you have an army, or a fleet. I don't want to fight you because _we'll win_."

Everyone stares at her, baffled or disbelieving or simply furious, but there's a laugh that wants to bubble from her throat, spear-blade or no.

"You have an army?" Astrid spits at the warlord. "We're what armies _break_ on. We're more than stubborn. We're the rock. You have dragons? We fought dragons for hundreds of years. They came at us like the tide, and we held. For centuries, we held."

She is falling, falling, falling, but the wind on her face feels like flight, and the rage and confusion in her enemy's eyes warms her and spurs her on.

"We'll fight you if we have to, and we won't ever give in. Not if you throw everything you have at us. We'll smash them all. Every ship. Every dragon. Every soldier. Always."

She was wrong, before. _This_ is what it is to be a dragon. Not just flight, but flame – to stand before her enemy and defy him.

"If we have to kill every one of you, we'll win. I'd rather not. I've had about enough of killing for one lifetime." She says this with a sigh, but with no less resolve. "But that won't stop me. That won't stop any of us. So send your army. Send them all. But I'm from Berk. _We don't lose_."

Astrid is sure of this. She has faith in her people. Maybe it shows on her face; maybe they can hear it in her voice. They hadn't believed in her bluff because of the lies tangled up in it, but in the face of the truth she believes with all her heart, the soldiers all around look a little less confident, now. Their weapons don't drop, but she can see several waver in the silence, as Drago Bludvist chokes on his hatred and fury.

"Yeah!" Ruffnut breaks into the silence, waving a fist in the air. "You said it, sister! You tell 'em! Bring it _on_! You mess with us, we'll take you down!"

"Finally!" whoops Snotlout, picking up the theme as soon as she stops for breath. "A decent fight! We can take you! We can take anything!"

" _Lots of explosions!"_ Tuffnut shrieks, overexcited. "Blam-blam-blam!" His sister starts making explosion noises with him, and from the sound of boots behind her and the way that one soldier's head is bobbing as he stares, Astrid is pretty sure they're both jumping up and down.

Fishlegs just screams " _Whooooo!"_ at the top of his lungs as if he's about to go battle-mad and charge the soldiers with no weapon but his teeth and his fists and his weight.

And Astrid actually, genuinely laughs. Maybe they're all going to die right now, but there's victory of a sort in refusing to live in fear.

But _wow_ , is Drago really incredibly mad now. It's impressive, really. She half expects him to burst limb from limb with the anger in him, as if he were a sheep-bladder toy ball that some silly kid won't stop blowing into. He's too angry to speak for a very long moment, as her friends cheer and Astrid laughs, brighter noises than any others she's heard on the deck of this ship. The spearhead resting on her breastbone trembles with his rage, the tip of it jerking back and forth as if it had a life of its own and a hunger to cut her throat.

"Big words," he says finally, sounding like he's choking on his own. "Big words from a little girl who thinks that love can save her from monsters. Look!" Finally the spearhead jerks away from her, to gesture up at the army massing above. "Look at them all! Will you stretch out your hands and convince them all with your _words_? I own their leader, so I own them all. Dragons only recognize force."

There's something in there that she should be very afraid of, but Astrid can't bring herself to care, still falling, yet to hit the ground. "No," she says, staring back boldly because she knows he wants her to be afraid, "you're still wrong."

And yet, it nags at her. Their leader? The only leader of dragons she knows of is the leviathan Hiccup and Toothless answer to, the chief of dragons that could have destroyed all of Berk in moments, but that had instead judged them and let them live to try again.

"You think you can tame dragons with _love_ , little girl?" The word sounds wrong in his mouth. How long has it been since he's used it? Astrid wonders, even as he sneers and finds his balance again.

"Impress me," he mocks her with her own words.

When he roars something to his soldiers in a language she doesn't recognize, Astrid doesn't need to understand the words to know that they are all on trial for their lives. Men in armor sheathe their weapons or hand them off to their comrades only to grab her and her friends, none too gently, and haul them away below decks, following their master as he strides before them, laughing.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	14. Chapter 14

_**Stormfall,**_ **Part Fourteen**

 _Some time previously…_

Beneath the ocean he is running. He moves steadily. He moves eagerly.

He is not hungry for food. All the fish are gone for now. They were eaten by his followers. They were eaten by the humans Himself leads. Or he swallowed them down as he waited.

He is hungry now for battle. There is breath waiting deep inside him. It is ready to be roared out. It will make a screaming challenge.

He has seen flight through the eyes of his dragons. It is a light and fleeting thing. It is easily swatted aside. It is nothing compared to the weight of his paws. His paws sink into the dark cold mud of the ocean. They kick up silt all around.

Monster gathers himself. He leaps again.

On land his movements are ponderous. He is graceless. He is heavy.

In the water there is none more powerful than he. He is sure of this. In all the _world_ there is none more powerful than he. Except for Himself.

The presence of the old king itches at him. The old one is close now. He is old and foolish and not fierce the way Monster is. Monster is hunting him. Every leap brings him closer and closer and closer.

The breath inside will call the old king from his lair. Then Monster will destroy him. Monster is younger and fiercer and hungrier. He is braver and stronger and cleverer. It is right that he will do so.

Above him he can feel the dark shadow of the ship. Himself is there. Monster can hear him. The ship follows Monster as he cuts through the water. It is pulled along in his wake. Once it pulls him back. Monster goes faster than it can follow. Then ship and Alpha dragon are caught in each other's ties. The weight of it jerks Monster's head to one side by his tusks.

He races more slowly then. Apology creeps into his steps. He feels Himself be angry. But he cannot speak to Himself as he speaks to his dragons.

Himself speaks loudly. But Himself does not hear. Himself is smaller than Monster. But Himself is stronger. He is Himself all alone. He does not need anyone else's approval.

But Monster wants Himself to approve of him.

He knows he must be good. He must do as he is told. He must fight well. He must bring all the flickering wild back-and-forth fleeting disorganized small dragons to fly with _his_ followers all together. Then Himself will be less unhappy with him.

The flying of new and strange dragons unsettles him. The wild ones are too quick. Monster does not like that it is hard to watch them all. Wild ones can fly anywhere. They can do anything. They could hurt him.

They are small. But Himself is small. And Himself can hurt him.

He only wants them to slow down. He wants them to be orderly and fly all together.

Fish swim together all in flocks of their own. More fish together are safer. Monster eats some of them. But he cannot eat them all. Some always escape.

So he knows that more dragons together must be safer. They must do as they are told. Their flying and fighting and quarreling will break the flow of their togetherness. It will send them scattering.

And then they will be easy to pick out. Then they will be easy to catch.

It is better that they obey. It is safer.

Monster reaches out to them as he gathers himself. He takes another long slow leap. He drifts around a hidden outcropping of stone. They are ready all around above. They sense his eagerness to fight. They feel it with him. They share their leader's excitement. Through them he smells the edgy anxious hungry scent of battle-readiness. He smells the imagined scent of blood on their claws. He smells many bright fires all together. Beyond his slow movements he feels their small sharp pacing. He feels their coiling and tensing to leap and fly and fight.

There are others. Himself does not like the ones that are too weak to fight or to work. Himself does not like the ones strong enough to work but not fierce enough to fight. So they are not of interest to Monster.

If they work very hard then Monster will notice them. If Monster fights very hard then Himself will be pleased and not angry.

Monster does as he is told. Some of them are not even good enough to do that. They do not even try.

And there are strangers. He can sense dragons not of the great flock. Many are too far away to speak to strongly.

Under the water Monster can hear the clicking and calling of the small ones with lightning. He does not like lightning. When there is lightning he stays very far under the water. He waits for it to go away. Then Himself shouts very loud with anger inside at him. But Monster still hides from lightning.

Himself has not told Monster to bring the lightning ones to him. Himself does not like it when Monster does things he is not told to do. So he leaves them alone. He does not reach out. He does not try to catch them. He wants to. If the lightning ones were _his_ then he could tell them not to bite at him with lightning ever.

But he does as he is told. Then there is less shouting. Then Himself is less angry. Because Himself is still angry it must mean that Monster is not good enough yet.

But he will be. If he is strong and fierce and does well in battle. If he takes the place of the old king.

If he is still not good enough then there will be more dragons to be with him. But Monster hopes that Himself will like him then.

Something sparks in his awareness. Monster pauses between leaps. He listens for something that is not a sound. He looks for something that cannot be seen.

It is the not-there thing!

But at once it disappears again. It is like sunlight fading as waves above wash it away. It is not to be chased down. It will not be caught.

Monster growls with frustration. The not-there thing is there. But it is not there. It can hear him. But it does not listen. He found it once. But it escaped. It fought him. Then it moved. Now he can only think toward it very loudly. He commands it always to hold still. He tells it always that it is small.

The small hiding one is maybe part of the small bright one. Monster is not sure. He does not understand how that could be. They are different minds in different places doing different things. But underneath their patterns are almost the same. He recognizes the mind-scent of the old king on them both. He has tasted that scent on others before. But there is more to them. They are strange.

In the small bright one there is more than hunting and flight and fear and mating and fighting and snarling and hiding. In it Monster can see strange things half-hidden beneath the mind-scent of the old king. And there is another mind-scent that might be the small hiding one. There are thoughts of scratches in dirt and colors on stone and cords tangled together and wondering and searching and things that are not so. And always there are thoughts of love. Monster had recoiled from that. He had been confused by the strength of it.

There is something inside the small bright one that Monster cannot claw into. It will not submit.

It does not matter. The small bright one will obey.

But he cannot find the small hiding one again. It was even stranger inside than the small bright one. Monster could not keep his eyes on it. It slipped away.

It sparks again. But then it darkens. It fades. It almost goes out. Monster growls as he looks for it.

And then the spark becomes a _**flame**_.

It flares to life. It blazes _at_ him. It hunts for him like lightning. Monster startles, surprised and alarmed.

The small hiding thing has snarled back at him before. But now it is louder and brighter and stronger. There is no more fear in its thinking. There is only fire striking at Monster. It is challenging him!

Monster is very irritated by it. He gathers the force of his power. In his mind he strikes back. His heavy paws are stomping on that bright spark and not lightless ocean mud. He swats at it with claws turned in to tear. He roars into its mind to deafen. He strikes at it with his tusks to stun. He pins it down to crush it. It must hold still!

How dare it challenge him! Monster has a great battle to fight. He has an old feeble one to overthrow.

The small hiding one should accept that Monster is stronger. It should fly neatly with the rest. It should not cause _trouble_!

* * *

 _Stay you yes yes yes good here stay you yes? yes? please?_ Bright Crest whimpers, resting her jaw across Hiccup's back to hold him there as he watches the still-empty metal cave.

He sighs, trembling, and rolls over to pet at her nose. He whistles _sorry_ and _sympathy_ and _affection_ , but he cannot bear to stay here anymore. He has told them that he _must_ go, that he and Toothless must be together, that they fly together with the little dragon on Toothless' shoulders. He has told them that they are whole together, that they are _broken_ apart. He has slept a bit, dozing in safety in the warmth of the heart-fires of the flock and their shy and baffled affection.

His shaking is not from fear, now, or from exhaustion. The shakings are for anticipation, and longing, and a need to find Toothless so strong it would be like drowning to stay more.

There is no movement from the cave-throat where fierce ones are, and there has not been any movement, so Hiccup thinks perhaps the human pushing the rolling thing went away when no dragons were looking, when all of their eyes and noses and listening were following things of dragons instead of the doings of humans.

 _Fear_ , One Eye howls low and quiet, dropping a shoulder between the young dragon and the metal cave outside. _Stay!_

Hiccup shakes off their cautions like snow, but relents, feeling their dread with them, knowing they are afraid for him as much as for themselves. Purring _gratitude_ to them all, he rises to all his paws and twines through them reaching out to touch and reassure. _Good good good good good_ , he tells them as he does so.

 _Brave,_ he praises Brave One.

 _Here look this-one this-one this-one good yes friendly love love warm good here_ , he tells Weary She. She is listening still for a voice that will not speak to her, and for a moment he presses his small body against hers and thrums _lonely_ sounds with her so that their cries of loneliness find a nest together to keep each other warm.

He does not like to leave them trapped behind metal nets, but even when he opens the nets and pushes them aside and holds them so they will not fall back, they will not come out into the bigger cave. There is no escape for them there.

With their whistles and hums of _goodbye-_ sounds warming him, he stalks the throat of the cave. Dropping into a hunting-crouch, he sneaks up on it by hiding behind the metal trees like stone teeth, scuttling from one to the next and watching it carefully in case it breathes fires at him or roars a threat.

But it does not roar, and soon he is crouched at the mouth of it, staring into its throat.

He knows from the scents of its breath that there are many dragons within. He can smell fire and musk and excitement and mess and fish and scorched wood and blasted-at metal, and hear the rustling of scales and the pacing of paws as claws click across the ground. his eyes adjust quickly to the darkness as he ventures in, taking small steps and staying ready to leap away and flee, back into the metal cave and all the way back to the forgotten flock to hide among them if he must.

This new cave looks like the cages that the Lines on Face Man had held captured dragons in, each dragon in its own cage and locked away, all in lines. Humans like things in straight lines, which Hiccup finds odd. Things do not come in straight lines. They have to be made so. Ice has straight lines sometimes, when it breaks or when the king first breathes it out, but soon it melts or pieces break away and then it is jagged like stone. Even smooth stone does not have sharp lines. It has curves and flowing.

They are bigger cages, though, dug into the walls of the cave, and the dragons in them pace back and forth.

The first one to see Hiccup snarls, leaping at the metal net of her cage and scratching her claws across it as if trying to tear through. _Out?_ she asks. _Out? Out!_

Another takes up the cry, making it a roar of _Fight!_

In moments every dragon in every cage is roaring, snarls and growls of _out out now fight chase fight out now out!_ But there is no fear in their cries, only eagerness and anger.

 _Small_ , one hisses at him as he scampers from cage to cage only to be pushed away by small blasts of flame. That one puffs himself up and spreads his wings as far as they will go in the cage and stomps his back feet. _Fight!_

Hiccup recoils, backing away in confusion. _No-threat_ , he signals, crouching _submission_ , and looks up just as the closest dragon draws in a deep breath to flame at him.

The flame misses as Hiccup dodges, tumbling away until his back is to a wall-space where there are no cages and raising the scales on his forelegs and the backs of his paws against the heat of it. Instead it burns at the dragon across from the flaming one, who screams _rage me fight yes eager ready fight fierce fight yes!_ and claws at the metal nets.

They scream insults at each other, and others jeer and mock at their posturing.

They are caged, but there is no fear in them. There is anger, and aggression, and no friendliness.

Ignored, Hiccup stares around, trying to understand, seeing everything he can in case it might be useful, or might be a threat.

The tunnel winds away and turns, twisting and curling back on itself as tunnels do. There are no humans here now, he knows soon. Humans carry fires around with them, but the only fires are small perching tame ones and the blasts from dragons as they snarl and threaten each other, pacing and fidgeting. Hanging from the sides of the cave, he sees sticks for striking with, heavy and tipped with sharp metal. He recognizes chains, but not thick leather cords woven together with metal in them and curled in circles, and the stacks of thin flat metal make no sense to him until he sees that the quarreling dragons are wearing metal the way humans do. But humans protect themselves because they have no scales, only soft-skins! Dragons do not need metal on their skins!

He forgets it all in a moment as the quarrel fades to nothing, the squabbling dragons only turning their backs and looking away with a great pretending of ignoring, and as a last defiant flare lights up a familiar tangle of leather straps hanging from the wall of the cave next to many other ropes.

It is their flying-with!

Hiccup races to it blind to the eyes that turn to follow him, dragons snarling all over again at his sudden movements, and pulls it down so it wraps all around him. Slumping to the ground all tangled up in it, he runs his paws across familiar links and carefully mended tears, breathing in the scent of it and thrumming a counterpoint of _joy relief yes this yes good good mine good happy happy yes this mine_ and _worry fear worry Toothless where Toothless fear confusion hurting where?_

That the flying-with is here and Toothless is not with it frightens him deeply, but finding it is like finding a paw print in mud or catching a familiar scent on the wind. Toothless must be nearby.

Padding deeper into the coiling tunnel with the flying-with wrapped around him so that it does not trail on the ground and leave a track, he calls out _Toothless-love? Toothless-mine? Where here yes? yes? calling calling lonely where you where listen love-you…_ in soft sounds, almost whimpering with desperation.

There is almost no light left at the end of the long tunnel, but in the very last cage there is a dark shape, silent and unmoving.

All of Hiccup's sounds catch in his throat at the sight of Toothless' familiar shape, head up and eyes hooded in a _waiting_ crouch, alert and tense, and the dragon-feral cries out convulsively, scrabbling at the latch that holds the cage closed to tear it open.

 _You here you here need need need Toothless-beloved love-you relief hurting love-you beloved-mine yes here good good good happy you!_ Hiccup wails, the sound half a scream as he struggles through the gap between cage and net before there is space for even his small body, shoving at it with his shoulder and his side. Stumbling and falling as the flying-with slips unnoticed from his shoulders, he collapses against Toothless and hides his face against the black dragon's scales, opening and closing his paws to snatch and hold.

 _Lonely lonely lonely good now good you here together together us_ , he cries, purring even as he trembles, crowding in and nudging against Toothless' jaw in a devoted caress.

Toothless' heart beats beneath his ribs and his breathing is shallow but steady, he is _alive alive alive alive_ – but to Hiccup's shock and confusion and horror the dragon who is half of himself does not respond.

He stays still as if frozen, as if he is a shape made of black-ice stone all coldness and edges, and makes no sound. His tail-fins do not twitch and shift, and his ear-flaps do not turn towards the sound of his partner-companion's cries, and he does not breathe to catch the scent of him, only as if sleeping. Beneath hooded eyelids that do not move except to blink very slowly, like falling asleep when he knows he should not, his eyes are small and shrunken as if staring into the sun which is not good to do because it blinds, and they do not see the little dragon clinging to his side.

His signals say _asleep_ , but Toothless cannot be asleep! He is crouched as if awake, and even if he was asleep Toothless _always_ hears the other half of himself when Hiccup cries out to him, even if he is sleeping very deeply very tired after much flying.

 _Toothless-love?_ Hiccup begs, pawing at his nose. _Here._

 _Here me here_ , he pleads, but Toothless does not hear him.

There is a sick taste of fear in Hiccup's throat, as he pushes and paws against Toothless' scales. He does not understand. Toothless is here but he is not. It is not just a terribly wrong thing – it is an _impossible_ thing, that Toothless does not hear him. It is unthinkable.

Shuddering so that his fangs chatter just as if he were frozen and wet, Hiccup pulls away, but that is worse, to be far away, even if the far away is only the distance of a step. Instead he leaps to Toothless' shoulders and pulls at his ear-flaps as if to wake him from a deep dream, and sprawls across Toothless' head to rest between his eyes and thump at his nose.

Toothless does not like it when he does this, Hiccup knows. He does not like having his nose pinned down. But he does not shake his head and make the dragon-feral fall away. Toothless does not move at all.

He can hear himself whimpering, his lifelong habit of vocalizing every thought slipping free of the control he has had to keep it under, to slink around in the territory of humans and not be seen or heard as a trespasser. At last he is free to speak aloud again to the one he wants to speak to most, but Toothless is gone away.

The thought freezes him almost as solidly as Toothless.

How can Toothless have gone away? Where could he go, if he is here and not asleep?

How could he not have taken Hiccup with him?

 _Toothless-beloved?_ Hiccup asks, crooning a hopeful appeal. _Where?_

Toothless does not reply. He stays unmoving, staring and silent, even when Hiccup cries out with all the pain tearing at his chest, carving new wounds into the emptiness where his heart should be.

Choking on the cry, Hiccup drops to the ground of the cage. He wants to give up and wail and follow Toothless wherever his heart has gone without him. But he does not know how to follow.

He cannot accept this.

 _Here_ , he murmurs finally, touching their noses together so that they are breathing with each other. _Here_.

The flying-with has fallen to the ground forgotten, but now Hiccup picks it up and twines it around them both, not as it should be but over Toothless' head. It is all tangled, but holding them together still. Hiding himself under Toothless' jaw, between his shoulder and his chest and curled up on Toothless' front paws, he holds the black dragon tightly and thrums to him. The sounds are small and broken and interrupted often by gulps to keep the hurting down, but he hums _love-you_ with all the strength and sureness in him.

Toothless has gone away, but Hiccup will not leave him. He is frozen and all of ice, so Hiccup will stay and freeze too.

They go together, always.

Hiccup has fires inside like all dragons – he knows – but his fires are small and cannot be breathed out. It hurts to melt ice with the little bit of fire that warms his skin, holding onto ice tightly until it melts between his paws, or holding it against his heartbeat, but he knows it can be done. Because their nest stays warm a bit even in the deepest winters, protected by the ice of the king and the warmth of the waters in the far-below caves, he has never had to do this to find water to drink. But ice is something he knows.

So he nestles against Toothless and breathes against his scales, wishing again and always for fires to breathe.

 _Together_ , he says in cries and hums and whistles, croons and whimpers and soft sounds, _you me we us yes always love-you love-you mine you yes us good together love-you sure confident safe good safe yes us together mine…_

He sings all the sounds of the love they share until his throat is empty and the ocean that hides inside him is beating at his eyes like not-yet rain that peeks from the clouds in small spittings to decide if it will rain now or go away elsewhere.

And still Toothless is silent.

Hiccup paws at his eyes and the scales on his paws rasp against his face. They are no comfort at all, and instead he hides his nose against Toothless' chest, nestling deeper into the hollow there. Reaching out, he catches one of the black dragon's ear-flaps and pulls. Toothless does not fight him, and his broad head lowers so that Hiccup is all but hidden by his beloved-companion's body.

He listens to the beat of Toothless' heart, and the echoes of his own voice when Hiccup places his jaw against the bigger dragon's throat and hums, reminding him how to answer. It is the wrong voice – it should be Toothless' voice – but when Hiccup falls silent Toothless makes no sound.

At last his despair turns to anger. He knows Toothless would not go away without him, and he knows that there is a very deep wrongness here. He knows that there are voices that speak without being seen or heard.

He wonders if voices can listen, if he shouts very loud.

Gathering up all his strength and all his rage, Hiccup strikes out with a silent roar, thinking of fury and protectiveness and desperation, challenging his enemy to show themselves and fight. He imagines the ferocity and strength of the storm that is beyond control, that is always free, and he claims the power of the storms he and Toothless so love as his weapon in the place of his blade and his claws. Whatever is out there, whatever is taking Toothless away from him – they are enemies, it and _(click)-phuh_! He will find the voices that snarled at him and would not speak to the forgotten flock, and he will take Toothless back from them.

It is not a sound in the throat, or a gesture with paws, or a showing with the movements of a body or of eyes. It is a thing in the mind, something imagined and felt, but things in the mind can be real if he imagines them strongly enough and tries to make them so.

Retaliation is quick, and brutal.

 _ **Pain!**_ slams into him like a hard flat water landing, and Hiccup gasps with it, the breath drawn in but never used to roar driven from his body with a blow not seen. Sparks light behind his eyes as if he has been too high in the air for too long, as if he is trapped there unable even to fall, and hurting treads heavily through his skull as the voices roar back, drowning out his challenge as if it had been nothing more than the squeaks of a hatchling.

Crying out, Hiccup flinches away from a strike only in his mind, unable to escape, but he turns towards Toothless to bury the sound against his scales.

As he does so, Toothless flinches with him.

The dragon-feral reacts without thinking, still reeling from the whip-crack of punishment for defiance. His own pain is shoved aside at once, nothing next to the idea that the other half of himself might be hurting too.

 _Sorry sorry sorry_ , he murmurs, reaching out to pet and soothe. And then – _Toothless?_ he asks, realizing.

One ear-flap twitches, only the slightest shadow of a movement.

Forgetting the punishment at once, Hiccup yelps with joy. _Here yes here me here you here? yes? yes? together!_

He purrs _reassurance_ and _love_ and _comfort_ , reaching out and tracing old scars and soft points and itchy spots, drawing memories and shared secrets. Every touch is a promise that he will not leave while Toothless is lost, he will not leave _ever_ , that they are together.

Pouncing on the pain and pinning it to the ground to squirm and squeal, Hiccup lashes out again, ready to leap away this time. His message is simple, a snarl of rejection: _get out!_

They are part of each other and there is nowhere for the voices to dig their claws in between to tear _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ apart!

He is prepared for the reply this time, and bears it, flaring defiance, because if the voices are hunting _(click)-phuh_ then they cannot trap and keep _Tt-th-ss!_

Even small movements are a victory, as Toothless blinks, and his tail twitches, and his shoulders shift, and the smallest of small sounds creeps from his throat uncertainly. Hiccup puts his nose to that sound and sings back to it, reassuring it and coaxing it into the open air.

In the other caves in the tunnel, far away, the sounds of quarreling, bickering dragons fall silent, and when their sounds begin again they are screams and roars of anger and hurting-hunting-fighting, but they are trapped behind metal nets and cannot reach the black dragon and the dragon-feral where they nestle together and find each other again.

* * *

Everything is very loud.

There are so many voices, and they are angry, yowling and snarling and furious, upset because everything is _not fair_ , it is all _not right_ , and everything is dangerous, so they must fight! He can hear them, so close. They stand over his shoulders and snarl and squabble until he wants to leap to his paws and yowl at them to be silent, to take their arguing and fighting and go away!

But that is not the way of things, and there is a terrible weight inside him, holding him down. It is not yet time, he must wait to pounce and then he will chase all of them away so that they run yelping with their heads down and their voices whimpering.

He trembles with eagerness to race at them with teeth bared and fires blazing, but obeys.

Still the irritation burns in him, coiling in his chest and growing like a flame catching in dry brush with the wind playing with it, teaching it to burn better and brighter until even great trees moan and shudder and fall. It warms him and fills him inside, roaring through all the empty spaces.

Fire is simple.

He understands so little. The shrieking of dragons is loud, but he forgets sometimes why they are angry. Is there a wrong thing done, a flock-mate insulted or hurt by an enemy? Will they run and flame and hunt their enemies down soon? It would be good to run. And he knows that…he was angry, he knows. There was someone he hated. There was something –

And he forgets.

He does not remember who they were. He does not remember who _he_ is. He does not remember how he came to be here, or where this place is.

He does not need to know.

It is not his place to lead. There is a strong leader, the fiercest of all the fierce ones, and he knows.

 _He_ is fierce too, like the leader, so it must be a right thing.

But there was something, something that he lost…

Seeing nothing, remembering only scraps, he waits, but the screams of dragons scratch at him like a burning coal on the thin scales of his wings, and he itches to turn and snap at it, flicking it away and crushing it into ashes that are no threat, no pain. He will scream louder than them, and snap and bite and slash until they stop!

Inside there is so much fire, and he wants to spring blindly, thrashing it away. His breathing drips with it, as if he had drunk from a clear stream and it had turned to flames in his mouth. He puzzles briefly that fire should run like water, even if it is not real fire yet. It would be like bright clear strange flames, like the fires in the sky that have so many colors in the deepest dark of the night, washing out even the burning stars. Distantly he remembers seeing it, when he and –

 _ **Bafflement**_ cracks through him, and _**offense**_ , and _**disappointment**_ so strong he whimpers beneath it.

It was a _wrong_ thought to have, and he must not think it again if he wishes to be strong and fearless and very great and much praised!

He does want that, he does! He _must_ have that. _That_ was what he lost, and the leader will help him to find it if he is good. He is angry that it has been taken away from him.

So he stays very still, as he was commanded to do, and he waits. Dark fires pulse in his eyes, and the howl of forests burning echoes in his ears until he can see and hear nothing else.

The leader holds him there, and wraps sharp claws of ice around him to protect him and hold him safe until it is time to lunge out of the darkness into bright light so that all can see how glorious and terrible he is.

When small blazes of fire spark and die against the ice, he does not feel them. The ice is a weight on his shoulders. It drowns out all sounds and stops up all wounds so that he cannot feel the very great hurt of the emptiness inside where fire rages now.

And then the presence like a paw resting on him shifts as the leader looks away, that weight raising to fall swiftly and strike to snuff out a bright flame dancing outside the ice, flickering and flaring. It is too far away to warm him, but the light of it shimmers through the frozen cold like a star, refusing to stay away.

 _Bright_ , he thinks, just as it gutters, and then _no…_ because it had been _bright_ , it had been _beautiful…_

He wants it to come back so he can see it clearly, because stars are –

He flinches, expecting the disappointment of the leader, but no roar blasts the thought from his mind.

…are for _following_ , he remembers, and for looking at, and for chasing, because one day when they have flown far enough they will be able to catch one, because his beloved one thinks they might be good for playing with…

And Toothless remembers.

There is ice around him still but he fights it, struggling to lift a paw or make a sound but his body will not do as he wishes it to. He is frozen for real, made into a stone!

There was a stone they found when they were littler, the two of them, a very great stone that was only stone but it was a _dragon_ too, and Toothless had startled and bristled and hackled at it, spooked by the snarling dragon that was a stone.

They had hidden from it, and watched it carefully, and when it did not move for many heartbeats Hiccup – and Toothless screams with joy and panic-fear and frustration, blunting his claws against the ice inside and turning the fire thrashing in his chest against it, fighting to get back to his dearest one as Hiccup snarls and blazes so bright – had darted out of their hiding place and pounced at it before Toothless could catch him to keep him safe, prowling low under its nose before springing to its shoulder.

It had been a stone, only a stone, and Hiccup had crooned and chuckled with wonder at the shaping of it, but Toothless had still been afraid and confused until his clever little companion had explained that it was a made thing of humans, a pretending thing.

Still, Toothless had not liked it. He understands Hiccup's shapes in ashes and snow and earth and crumbling white stone, he can see the shadows of dragons in them and trails to follow, but those shapes do not cast shadows of their own and bare their teeth.

Sometimes still he dreams of it, and for a long time he was afraid that it would turn and look at them and still be stone, but stone that moved. He feared that _he_ would turn to stone and be trapped high on a hillside always seeing the ocean and the sky and unable to fly, or that Hiccup would become a frozen shape all heavy and silent and cold, and when he woke from nightmares he would lick at his paws and Hiccup's face to know that there was no taste of stone about them.

He will not be a thing of stone!

Beside him – beside him, so close, and Toothless had not known! – the voice Toothless knows as well as his own sings _defiance_ and _courage_ and _challenge_ , roaring bright and clear over the voices of bigger dragons, and for a moment in the spaces between dreaming and waking for real Toothless feels a blaze of fire sparking like his own blasting-fire but different as every dragon's flame is different. It scorches past him and Toothless warms himself against the heat of it, basking in it like love and like sun as the ice melts away.

There is fire in his throat but it turns to smoke as Toothless swallows it down, and with the shadows of it on his tongue he blows it away in a soft sound of _recognition_.

And he moves his nose with all his strength, and nudges it against Hiccup's throat where that challenge is humming.

There is no lightning in hidden dark places, only in the open sky, but still it is as if a spark all their own flashes between them, tearing the ice to broken shards and melted puddles.

Toothless lurches to his paws on legs hurting from long stillness and immediately bowls them both over, gurgling his very happiest sounds as Hiccup shrieks _delight_ and embraces him with all his paws.

 _You here you here you here!_ Toothless cries, leaping to his feet again and sending Hiccup tumbling, but at once pouncing back at him with gentle paws to pin him to the ground and nose at him, purring so that even his tail shakes out to the end of it. _You you you you you you you!_ and his signals and his voice say _rejoicing_.

At last – _at last -_ they are together again.

It is too important even to play-fight over and run and scream and dance as dragons do. Instead Toothless twists his jaws and wraps them with no teeth around his other half's body and tosses Hiccup into an _everything always_ embrace that curls all of Toothless into a tangle around him, holding him tight and never, never letting him go.

It is more than reunion. It is being whole again.

Nothing else matters, not the yowls of angry fierce ones or the distant hissing of hurtful voices or the very great wrongness of the ship and the many other ships and the army and the twisted-inside leader – the Alpha! – of all of them, but _not_ of _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ , not ever!

For a long time, thoughts are beyond them. But finally Toothless widens his eyes with curiosity and asks, _how? Scared me hurting no you no you scared._

 _Hurting?_ Hiccup demands, alarmed. He struggles free of the bigger dragon and scampers across Toothless' side until he finds wounds from dragon claws and hisses, angry. Toothless laughs with the fondest of amusement at his beloved one's outrage over what now feel like very small and unimportant scratches. How can he care for torn scales, even his own?

As Hiccup spits with disgust, Toothless coils his tail around to smack him lightly. _Fine_ , he reassures. _Not-important here you here love-you good good._ The wounds are nothing, as long as they are together.

 _Listen,_ Hiccup indicates, looking around alertly and tipping his head as if tracking a sound, and snarls a warning of _threat._

Toothless does not need to be told that, but he realizes that while they know each other best of all, they do not think inside each other's minds except in dreams sometimes. It would be good if they did, though. Then they would never be lost and far away from each other ever again.

The growl that rumbles through the black dragon nearly shakes Hiccup from his perch on Toothless' flank. _Off_ , he suggests, pushing Hiccup gently with one wing. When his smaller partner leaps to the ground and Toothless can move freely, he rises to all his paws and bristles _danger_ , flicking his nose at the world _there_ beyond the darkness of the cave in the belly of the ship, and crouches submissively – _Alpha_. And he snarls _wrong fierce hate bad_ , flinches _hurt,_ hisses _fight_.

Hiccup startles, understanding – Toothless can see the shock and sudden fear in his eyes.

They know very well that not all Alpha dragons, not all dominant leaders, are as wise and gentle as their king, and they know that an Alpha can force dragons to do things they do not want to. But to defy an Alpha is terribly dangerous. It is not the way of things, to do so. It is not good to challenge an Alpha, they know, because Alphas are strongest of all, but Toothless puffs so with pride for his other half that he imagines himself all full of hot steam like a gulping ocean cousin.

He purrs all over with love and gratitude and amazement, that Hiccup had challenged even an _Alpha_ for Toothless, and he shudders to think that his little partner had _won_.

 _Mine mine mine mine mine_ , he says, spinning all around Hiccup as he crouches low to the ground thinking with his face all twisted and his snub nose wrinkled as if scenting for ideas, the black dragon rubbing their faces and skins against each other in a happy, possessive spiral until they are all tied up like the flying-with, tangled underfoot and forgotten until Toothless catches a front paw in it and steps on the rest of it with a back paw, and stumbles and sprawls.

He is not even annoyed when Hiccup laughs at him, because it is the best of sounds, but behind the laugh there is more thinking, and his eyes are elsewhere following a trail.

* * *

Hiccup has no trouble with the concept of an Alpha of dragons, or even with the idea of a malevolent one. And it makes sense to him that the Alpha could speak inside his skull instead of with sounds and signals – _his_ king does.

He understands that humans have Alphas, too, but it puzzles him that there should be both here. Does the Knotted Man crouch and submit to the Alpha of this flock, then? Pretending to command, when it is the Alpha commanding?

He cannot imagine that the Alpha of the flock might follow the commands of the Knotted Man. It never occurs to him.

When he listens, he imagines he can hear the Alpha's voice, still commanding, but _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ are stronger together, and for now they have kept those demands at bay. The lightning – it could not have been _real_ lightning, but lightning is strange and Hiccup does not understand it – still hums between them, sparking and flashing and scorching the air in its wake and protecting them, even if it is a dream-thing.

Lightning burns and is gone, but Hiccup pounces on the memory of it and carries it off in his jaws to a good hiding place in his mind where he can find it again, keeping it like a stolen thing to play with.

 _Together you me we us together yes relief fear lonely good now together_ , he hums and chatters, and Toothless leaps from his tangled-up sprawl to pounce at him in playfulness. They chase each other around the cage wildly, shaking all over with joy at each small reunion.

When they have calmed a bit and settled down panting and laughing, Toothless croons _you here? curious wondering amazed confused_ , urging Hiccup up to tell his story.

It is hard for Hiccup to do so. He knows how to say and to show some of the things that have happened to him. He can show being in a cage, because they are in a cage now even though it is bigger and not closed as tightly. And he can show sneaking and creeping, and he can even say that the _pfikingr_ she _Uh strrrrTT_ is here with her flock, and that the humans that are the enemies of _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ are her enemies too. And Toothless can smell the scents of the trapped flock on his partner's scales as Hiccup describes them with gestures and pretending and croons _sympathy_ and _regret_.

The struggle is not in the telling of those things. It is in the remembering. Hiccup wants only to push the fear and the being-hunted and the being-trapped of it from him and turn away, never looking at it again.

But he has never hidden anything from Toothless. They have no secrets between them.

 _Disgust_ , he spits finally, and tells Toothless about pretending to be human, that it was the only way to hide among humans, and hides his face and fur beneath the scales on the backs of his paws, curling them into claws with wishing – ashamed, ashamed.

 _Stupid_ , Toothless scolds with amusement in his voice, laughing at him with the _hough hough hough_ sound they and some of the flock use. _You._

Hiccup yelps a protest.

 _Love-you you mine yes yes yes always us together_. Toothless does not care about pretending. He knows that pretending is not true.

It does not matter.

 _Sneaking clever sneaking careful yes yes yes good approval you here here good love-you_ , Toothless thrums to the smaller dragon, nuzzling him all over and making small licks at his face and fur and scales. He nudges his nose against the scales stuck to the tops of Hiccup's paws – they are falling off some now after much running and playing, but most are still there – and chirrups amusement and approval.

Sighing, Hiccup lets Toothless rub their faces together, washing away the scents of the forgotten flock so that they smell of each other again. Climbing to Toothless' shoulders, he curls himself into his accustomed place and rolls and twists a bit, snuffing out the last of the smells of human things beneath dragon scents. Toothless _whuff_ s delight and rolls bigger, making Hiccup slip from his perch and tumble to the sand, where the bigger dragon drops his jaw onto the dragon-man and pins him there.

Laughing in his own way, Hiccup wraps his forelegs around Toothless' head as far as they will go and scratches with one back paw blindly until he nudges a soft spot and all of Toothless' paws slide out from under him in a great _whumph_.

The voices in the darkness are banished to the furthest corners and ignored. The commands and the hisses of the Alpha that caught Toothless and tried to crush Hiccup are too quiet to be heard beneath the song of being together again that is louder than all other sounds. As long as they are together, they can guard each other so that there is no blind spot where the Alpha can creep up on them and pounce.

Even when the commands roar at them so loud they hurt a bit inside, they are strong enough to resist, and they do not have to listen when the Alpha orders _**obey!**_ and _ **hunt!**_ and _ **fight!**_

It urges them _**angry!**_

They choose not to obey.

As long as they are together it does not matter that they are still in the belly of the ship, or that there is snarling all around from the fierce ones in other cages, or that there is a human Alpha and a dragon Alpha both set against them.

They have each other, and they are invincible together.

A new sound starts, catching their attention, and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ go still, listening alertly. Under the roars of fierce ones – Toothless bristles and snarls and flicks his tail to say that the Alpha wants them to be angry, and Hiccup whimpers _sad_ that they are dragons all alone without a half of themselves to find them and snarl for them – they can hear the clanking and rattling of metal, and the quick heavy steps of humans, echoing down the tunnel from the cave beyond.

Cautiously, in a low slink that keeps him low to the ground ready to leap away in a moment, Hiccup creeps towards the cage-net. Staying in the shadows and raising his hood to hide his fur and the pale bare soft-skin of his face, he stares out at the shapes of humans.

They lift latches on the cage-nets and fierce ones leap to escape, but the humans keep them back with long poles so that instead of flaming and snapping at the humans or pushing past to strike at _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ because their Alpha cannot, the dragons turn and race up the tunnel towards the metal cave. Their snarls turn to screams of excitement as they chase each other, and the sounds from the cave echo back to the listening dragon-pair.

Thinking quickly, Toothless lunges and snaps with no teeth at one of Hiccup's back paws, catching it tightly and pulling him back from the edge of the cage. When the little dragon struggles free and flips around with fangs bared in outrage that is all shoulders and not at all claws, Toothless swats at him gently and glares. The humans are coming this way!

Struggling to remember what was before, before Hiccup found him here, Toothless sets his shoulders and raises his head, staring blankly at the cage-net as the stone dragon on the seaside hill and in his dreams had stared. He is pretending to be not what he is just as Hiccup had pretended, but he raises a wing invitingly.

Hiccup understands the soundless suggestion at once, and scrambles to hide between Toothless' shoulder and the wall of the cage. He is only there a moment before he scuttles out again to snatch the flying-with, dropped and forgotten except to be stepped over and tripped over, and stash it away in the hiding place.

Concealed beneath Toothless' wing where it is furled against his side again, Hiccup closes his eyes and listens as the footsteps of humans and the scraping of metal against metal and the movements of freed fierce ones draw closer.

 _ **Fight!**_ the Alpha commands them outside the lightning sparking through them where they crouch side by side, flanks pressed together and their heartbeats once again thrumming like paws racing and matching step for step.

Perhaps they will.

But _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ rarely do exactly as they are told by anyone.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	15. Chapter 15

_**Stormfall,**_ **Part Fifteen**

Being hauled through the corridors of Drago's flagship, swept along in the midst of enemy soldiers like a stampede of metal and tension and bloodlust, is an experience Astrid is in no hurry to repeat. There's no thought in it, only jostling for space and for breath to avoid being trampled underfoot. It doesn't help much to know that she will probably never have to repeat it, because something deep inside her knows that she is never coming back this way.

She's being taken to her death, and her friends with her. She caught glimpses of them in the lantern-light as they were marched deep into the ship, down to the decks where they were forbidden to go. None of them have been bound, but they may as well be – the hands on them are relentless and strong, and there's nowhere to run in the corridors of the ship. There is nowhere for them to go except along with the flow of soldiers, following the heavy footsteps of their mad leader. Even over the chaos and scrambled sounds of jangling metal and panting breathing and snarls and shouting competing with the protests of her young Vikings, Astrid can still hear Drago's strides, quick and eager, and his commands to his soldiers in a language she can't make out.

When her head clears and Astrid can think again, she finds that they're being led down one last short ramp and through a pair of wide doors into a space so brightly lit it blinds her, for a moment.

Squinting and blinking against it, Astrid stares in shock.

There is an entire arena hidden away down here! Armor plating coats the walls and the pillars supporting the roof, and the walls are hung with long poles and sharp blades and wickedly curved hooks, as familiar to her as her own boots. They are weapons to fight dragons, to fend them off or pin them down until reinforcements can run to assist and deal the final blow.

It's wide and low and bright and enclosing, and suddenly Astrid is desperately sorry for all the dragons that bled and died in Berk's dragon-training pit over the years, at the hands of frightened children being taught to hate or those of adults who couldn't see past their training to think of anything else to do with their captives but kill them, just to make room for _more_ captives, and on and on in an endless cycle.

Did they understand, she wonders now, did they know? Did they peer out from their cages smelling blood on stones and know that their fate would be the same?

Astrid feels for them now, feeling the same dreadful knowledge.

Those weapons hanging from pegs on the wall are guarded immediately, armed soldiers stepping between the Vikings from Berk and Eret, captured along with them, and the blades that might save their lives. The door they've just stepped through is secured likewise. A heavy lever doesn't seem to connect to anything, but she can't imagine that it's there just to hang things on. Maybe it's a trapdoor, ready to drop prisoners into the ocean below.

The cages built into the wall offer no escape, but there is another corridor leading out, Astrid notices, sizing up the room and looking for anything that might give her some hope of a future beyond the next few minutes.

"Look at that," Fishlegs whispers, nudging her. Astrid manages not to startle like a dragon spooked by a line of flapping laundry.

"What?" she blurts, following his pointing finger.

"Is that a hatch?"

"There's one like that up on the deck," Tuffnut puts in. "Wait! You don't think –"

"We never think," Ruffnut does her very best to keep up their usual banter. Eret stares at her disbelievingly, clearly unfamiliar with just how irrepressible the twins can be. Astrid is grateful for it, for once. It's a breath of normality in the midst of a situation she can't see a way out of, hatch in the roof or not. "But that looks like a dragon door to me."

"Yeah, well, unless either of you muttonheads can fly on your own, it's not much of a way out!" Snotlout snaps at them. The soldiers guarding them have released them all, taking up those weapons and moving instead to the tunnel across the room, and without discussion they've all gathered into a tight knot, clustered back to back defensively.

"Set them loose," Drago growls to his soldiers, something like a smile twisting his face. Bitter and cruel, it suits him well, but it doesn't improve his appearance at all.

At once it's clear that he doesn't mean the Vikings and Eret, who are already as free as they're likely to get. Instead the soldier positioned at the mouth of the other tunnel turns and passes on the order. His shout is quickly drowned out by the clanging of metal and the sounds of dragons roaring.

It's a sickeningly familiar sound. Astrid grew up with those roars haunting her dreams and striking her awake from watchful dozes, sending her out to fight for her life and the lives of her people. Habits that have slept sullenly for a year spark to bright life again, and she finds her breath coming faster, her eyes going wide, her heart racing, her hands clenching around a weapon they can't find. Lessons hard-learned shift her feet in the sand to brace for an attack, and she fixes on the sound to track where it's coming from even though she _knows_ where.

In her throat there is the sick taste of a dragon raid, fear and rage and desperation and exhaustion and bitterness and a twisted kind of feverish excitement all mixed together. She can taste the ghosts of ashes of flames long since snuffed out from buildings long since rebuilt and, all too often, rebuilt a second time, and a third, because Vikings are as hard on their buildings as dragons are. She could almost swear that she can hear the sound of hungry fires and panicking sheep and the ringing strikes of axes and swords against dragon scales amidst the battle-cries of warriors, and the bright room around her goes dim, its light drowned out under the weight of so many remembered nights.

Something red and huge and already sparking with flames between the plates of the armor it wears rips itself from the dark tunnel into the light, and the Titanwing Monstrous Nightmare rears as high as it can in a space still not big enough for it and spreads its wings and screams.

Almost at once something else bulls into it from behind, and it leaps away in outrage, turning on the other dragon and opening its jaw to bite and tear.

Astrid doesn't recognize it, as it charges past and weaves among the pillars to ram its thick horns against the cages along one wall, but another coils its way out of the tunnel, and another, and another, and another. They are all different sizes and colors and shapes – even Fishlegs is at a loss for some of them, even as he feverishly catalogs and numbers and names as many of them as he can – but all of them wear armor, and all of them are raging, as furious as if all of their tails have been caught between Gobber's best hammer and the anvil.

She makes this comparison through experience. Gods, that had been a mess to clean up.

They snap at each other, pouncing and tumbling and squabbling, but their claws score across metal armor riveted to their scales and draw no blood. Their fires die against the plating on the walls, and those not fighting each other circle and snarl at the huddled knot of dragon-riders and dragon-trapper, or throw themselves against the cages as if trying to break in and get at whatever is being kept in there.

The dragons – the dragon _army_ – scream and pace and lunge aggressively, but none of them go anywhere near Drago Bludvist, who watches them with a strange kind of pride in his eyes. Only once does he crack his staff across the shoulder of one that comes too close to doing serious harm to another, and it retreats at once, shrinking away from a blow that couldn't have been more than a tap to something that heavy and well-armored.

"So, anyone else want to try fighting these with fists?" Snotlout offers, but Astrid can hear the false note in his brashness as clearly as she can see that they don't stand a chance.

"Enough!" Drago roars to the army once no more dragons emerge from the corridor. Soldiers come up to prevent any of them from escaping back into it, spear-tips and prods lowered defensively. He slams his staff against the nearest column, making it ring like the great bell a traveling party of Vikings from somewhere very far away had carried with them, bringing stories of raids on distant islands and rich fortified encampments, and the dreadful weather and poor luck that had brought them so far off course over the waves and through the mists. "Be still!"

There is a moment when Astrid doubts that any command could get through to this belligerent and half-mad flock, but then all the dragons stop still in unison, and their heads turn towards him. Their eyes narrow and stare, and they shuffle and stumble back from the corners of the arena to range themselves before the warlord for his inspection.

They are a terrible and impressive sight.

Berk held dragon raiders at bay for three hundred years, but these are organized, trained and equipped for war, a war unlike anything the Archipelago has ever seen. This is only a single division of the greater army, and it presents a wall of scales and armor, fire and fangs, claws and muscle. Astrid can see the scars of their battle experience marked across them, wounds that healed wrong and dents and scratches in the armor that couldn't be polished or beaten away.

She doesn't want to wonder what else they have destroyed, what other places like her own Berk that tried to resist them and failed.

But worse than their battle-scars is the way that they stare. There's nothing of the curiosity and interest and good humor and empathy she's learned to see in Stormfly, or the whip-sharp intelligence she's seen in Toothless when he's met her eyes as an equal and dared her to think of the Night Fury and his Wildfire as no more than animals. The dragons that live in and around Berk are _more_ somehow. There's a quality – a humanity, she'd even say – that Drago's terrible army lacks.

If this is what's coming for them, that new way of life that she has been building on Berk – that she's fought so hard to show others and teach them, too, to believe in – doesn't stand a chance. That dream of coexistence that she and Stoick have been working towards and protecting in honor of the chief's impossible son is so much more fragile than their people are.

That peace will be the first casualty, before any blood is shed or fire catches hold.

Yes, they'll fight. But Astrid doesn't want to go back to that endless war, and it will be endless. They will be fighting this army off for the rest of their lives. And every dragon will be suspect, because it might be one of Drago's. They started with so few dragons they could trust, but every few days a new one would come to town and start learning to make friends with humans. If they have to go to war, any stranger might be a spy. All that trust will be lost.

"Right. We need a plan," Snotlout hisses in a whisper. "I call the Titanwing. Fearsome's a thousand times nastier than that piece of work. I can take 'im. You watch. Tuff?"

"Uh, aren't they going to try to eat us or something?" Tuffnut whispers back, or at least as close to a whisper as Tuffnut ever comes.

Any more speculation is cut off as Drago turns to face them, gesturing to his waiting army.

"A man who can control dragons can control the world," he rumbles. "I speak, and they obey, and the world burns. Or, if I choose, that world lives in peace and safety. When all the dragons are under my hand, the world will be safe. But imagine the sort of chaos that would erupt if you truly intend to pit your little island against me. A war of dragon against dragon."

Astrid is tired of listening to him. She'd almost prefer to take on the army by this point, even if all she has is her hands and her friends. Besides, the next time Drago waves that hooked staff in her direction, she's going to take a shot at snatching it off him. He's holding it loosely in one hand, so if she's quick enough…

"I thought that way once," she says instead, hoping to get him to brandish it at her again. A shame she missed her chance up on deck. "I thought that if I could train dragons to fight each other, my people would be safe. They'd bleed for us, and it wouldn't matter, because we'd be fine. And what did I care for dragons?"

It was what she'd needed to do at the time, she still believes. She was doing the best she could with what she had. But she's grateful that she never had to send Stormfly up in to battle, and that the dragons of Berk have become more than toy soldiers and makeshift shields.

"I was wrong. So are you. There's no need for us to fight, but our dragons will fight for us. But not because we force them to. Because we're friends."

Drago sneers dismissively, lip curling back to show teeth. "Then you are even more of a fool than I thought. After today, my army will be strong enough to burn through anything, and I will add your dragons to my army with nothing more than numbers."

Then he raises his staff – out of reach of Astrid's hands, to her disappointment – and gestures to his men, and his soldiers run to lean on the lever.

It's heavy, and they struggle with it, but as it creaks around one question is answered – how do you get dragons this big into the hold of a ship?

As it turns out, you bring them in through the roof.

The great hatch, twin to the one they'd all made a habit of stepping around rather than across on deck, is indeed a dragon door, as Ruffnut put it, and a circle carves itself out of the ceiling of the armored room. Daylight shines through it like the waxing of the moon has been sped up into less than a minute.

They're so busy staring at it, and at the army as the dragons turn to look and tense to spring, that Astrid barely notices some of the soldiers returning to the depths of the tunnel, hefting their long pole weapons again and sticking close together.

Drago roars to his warrior dragons, and they take off, fighting each other to be through the hatch and out into the open, soaring upwards to join the rest of the army, already launched and ready for battle. They swarm all around each other, single-mindedly and determined, so that the force of their wings beating all at once stirs the sand beneath all their feet into a brief but blinding sandstorm.

The sand settles, and the arena is empty of dragons, and Astrid and her friends are still alive.

"Hey, we're not eaten," Tuffnut comments, cheerfully enough.

It's Eret who answers him, even though he's been silent and resigned up until now, keeping mute as if hoping he'll be overlooked and all will be forgiven as long as he just doesn't provoke Drago further. At least he hasn't tried to bargain his way out, but then he knows better than any of them that Drago doesn't forgive anything he thinks of as betrayal. Astrid remembers him saying as much back on his ship. If she can get any of them out of here – she doesn't have a plan for that yet, but she still hopes – she'll get him out too, if she can. He may not have a choice about being on their side, now, but she'll take what allies she can get.

"Don't be fooled. That just means he has something more horrible in mind than feeding us to his army."

"So," Drago says, and the tone of his voice confirms Eret's guess – it's the voice of a man looking forward to springing a nasty surprise on someone he doesn't much like. "You have seen what I can do. Let me see what you can do."

As he speaks, his men race from the dark tunnel much more quickly than they had entered it. Most of them make a break for the door to the rest of the ship, and only a few stay to guard the lever that controls the hatch and the weapons remaining on the walls and the door. They run as if something worse than anything is hard on their heels.

A snarl echoes down the tunnel as the door slams behind the last of them, and a shadow leaps from the darkness and into the light.

For a moment Astrid doesn't recognize him, but there is surely no other dragon like this one, and she recognizes the battered-leather harness wrapped around his chest and shoulders, almost black with age and wear.

Toothless growls as fiercely as any of the army dragons as he paces, his steps sluggish and stumbling. His eyes are hooded and his head is down, but his teeth are bared. He breathes heavily and hisses, making terrible snarling, roaring sounds. Spittle drips from his jaws, and his tail lashes furiously.

"Command _that_ , if you will, little dragon tamer," says Drago, grinning horribly.

Against her will, a cry of dismay rips itself from Astrid's throat, small and half-muffled but betraying her pain at seeing Hiccup's beloved, brilliant Night Fury companion like this. She has fulfilled her promise: she has found Toothless. But too late, too late! It is a silver-tongued fulfillment, a failure in all but name.

This is not Hiccup's Toothless, the doting companion and inseparable shadow – this is a demon!

He looks wild – he looks rabid – he looks like the monster Astrid had believed him to be, once, the creature from nightmares they'd all heard stories about.

 _Night Fury_ – the ghost story of Berk's Vikings. A dragon all but invisible, capable of sneaking up on any warrior in the darkness, a death that pursued its prey on silent wings and struck without warning, faster than anyone could ever see, leaving only shadows. As a child she knew that a Night Fury could track her until her very last step – and it would be her last step, it would make sure of that – that it couldn't be fought. It could only be run from and hidden from and, even then, it probably wouldn't be enough.

When she was old enough to read the _Book of Dragons_ she found that she was instructed to kill every other dragon on sight, even the most terrible, the most massive, the most venomous, and the most vicious. But the Night Fury…the _Book_ hadn't bothered to assume that even the greatest warriors would be able to kill this beast. The ghost story she'd been told had become the bitter punchline at the end of the _Book_ , reminding her that there are things no warrior can fight and fates no one can escape.

A Night Fury, Astrid had known without doubt, was death given form.

And then she had met Toothless, and learned that the lethal monster could also be a devoted companion and an intelligent protector and a loyal and affectionate playmate. She had found that her nightmare had a sense of humor and a fluent and communicative range of expressions, and a bottomless reserve of love.

But this is the creature from her nightmares brought to life.

"Is that _Toothless_?" she hears Fishlegs say. "Oh, gods, it is! What's wrong with him? What's happened to him?"

"Okay," says Eret, despair in his voice, "we're dead."

"No!" Astrid rallies, trying to fight past that same despair. "No, don't give up!"

"Uh, in case you haven't noticed, that's a _Night Fury_ ," Eret growls back at her, and she shoots a scowl at him. "I wouldn't want to take that on even with all my people and all our arsenal with us, and we have no weapons. What exactly do you intend to fight it with?"

"He knows us," Astrid protests, but she can hear the weakness in her own arguments in the face of the drooling, raving creature stalking them slowly, "he'll recognize us…"

Drago Bludvist is scowling slightly at the Night Fury, muttering something under his breath about punishing whoever went in there, but now he laughs at her words, setting his staff in the ground far out of reach and leaning on it. "He doesn't know you anymore," the warlord mocks her in his low growl. "He belongs to me, and he sees only what I wish him to. He sees only the enemy."

And to Toothless, he says, "Kill them."

 _No!_ Astrid thinks desperately, but Toothless leaps for them, snarling, and the part of herself that never stops being a warrior, that can fight dragons while on the edge of exhaustion, takes over.

"Scatter!" she yells, shoving the nearest person – Tuffnut – in one direction and launching herself in another. Her feet slip in the sand and she stumbles, but even before she's on her feet again she's shouting more orders. "He can't chase all of us! Distract him!"

Toothless pounces towards Fishlegs, and Astrid scrambles back to her feet, waving her fists and shouting, diving into his field of vision and making herself a target. To her very short-lived relief Toothless turns on her instead, leaving Fishlegs to take to his heels and make a break for it.

And now she has a Night Fury hunting her, with nowhere for her to run and no axe in her hand, and she can't remember the rest of her plan.

She feels sand drip through her fingers from where she'd grabbed a handful of it while getting back to her feet, and decides that sand is a better weapon than trying to outrun one of the fastest dragons she's ever seen. With his eyes all but closed she can't tell how much of it actually gets in those green eyes when she throws it towards him to blind him, but he pulls away roaring, beating his wings and thrashing his head from side to side, and Astrid has a chance to get away.

"Hey, okay, I get it," Ruffnut says, grabbing a fistful of sand of her own.

Snotlout backs her up. "Over here, beastie!"

Under the mocking eyes of Drago Bludvist, who Astrid curses to six different underworlds and a variety of unsavory fates every time she has a moment, they manage to keep the Night Fury at bay by teaming up on him. Whenever he seems to be focusing on one of them, although it's hard to tell what he's paying attention to with his eyes hidden, someone else steps up and shouts and closes in until he turns on them instead.

It seems wrong that they should be able to so easily trick a dragon Astrid knows is as smart as most humans, if not more so, but it's the least of her concern next to fire-blasts that scream past just a hand's-breadth away from Eret and die against armor-clad pillars, and teeth that snap closed where Snotlout's hand had been just a moment before, and claws that tear great gashes through the sand as Fishlegs grabs Ruffnut by one arm and hauls her away faster than she can get to her feet from a leaping roll. And she struggles to think through the furious roars that fill the room and the beating of wide black wings.

But when Tuffnut throws more sand at him and it misses, but Toothless recoils anyway, Astrid starts to get slightly suspicious. This is all wrong – not just that they are fighting Toothless, but the way that Toothless is fighting.

She knows Toothless is clever, and she's faced him down before. She's seen what he can do, and she knows she hasn't seen the half of it. Most of them should have been pillars of smoking ash by now. But his blasts go wide, his leaps fall short.

He's too easily distracted. Astrid has seen him fix on a target, as inevitable as the fall of a stone that soars into the air with the power of a catapult and hesitates, weightless for a heart-stopping moment. She remembers it with the clarity of the bright pain of a broken bone, because _she_ had been his target, she had seen the fury he was named for in the line of his body and the fire in his eyes.

But he's clumsy here, far clumsier than he should be even with the shifting sand underfoot, and wavering, eyes almost shut, and not just because her friends are throwing sand at him.

A glance to one side shows her that Drago knows none of this. He's fixated on Toothless with a sort of sickly possessive delight, enjoying the lethality he sees in the Night Fury as he watches Toothless stalk Snotlout.

The obvious thing is to watch Toothless, so Astrid steals a glimpse away. There are people running everywhere, sand flying from the beating of Toothless' wings and the skidding of dragon paws and human feet and the handfuls of it that are their only weapons, and the arena is chaos, but beyond it all, for a moment, she could have sworn she saw a shadow disappearing behind one of the more distant columns…

She doesn't have time to think about it further, because just then a heavy blow strikes her back and sends her flying. She's let her guard down too long, looked away too long, and now Toothless has caught her. His strike is only to swat at her, not to rip and tear, and Astrid staggers and falls.

When she can see again she finds herself helpless in the sand with Toothless looming over her, one sharp-clawed paw holding her still.

Fear coiling in her throat, Astrid realizes that she has been here before. She remembers another time when she was helpless before the Night Fury, but then he and Hiccup had been together, and Hiccup had chosen to let her go.

She does not expect anything as complicated as mercy from this rabid, ferocious creature, but still, she tries.

"Toothless," she pleads, "it's me! It's okay! Come on. Please don't hurt me."

In another time, she would have called herself a coward for begging. But that was the old Astrid, Astrid the warrior, whose most important reasons to live were her war and her pride and a world founded on hatred, a world that would go on without her whether she lived or not.

She has so much more to live for, now. She has a way of life unique in the Archipelago and maybe beyond to protect, and friends she actually cares about now that she's seen the courage hidden behind their various forms of foolishness, and the belief that she can make a difference if she's brave and strong and clever and creative enough to take the chance.

She doesn't have to accept fate anymore. Even if she dies fighting it, still she will have fought.

Beyond the shadow of Toothless' wings, mantled over her, she can hear the others trying to shout at him, distract him, even chase him away, but now that he has his prey pinned he will not let her go. Instead he snarls at them, threatening to flame, so that they cannot come close enough to rescue her.

If she had a weapon she could strike at him, drive him away, but he seems content to keep her there and hold her friends at bay in a deadly standoff.

And then, in a chance moment of silence, she hears very clearly the creak of metal.

" _You!_ " Drago Bludvist roars a heartbeat later, all of the joy she'd seen on his face disappearing from his voice, replaced by horror and disgust and maybe even a bit of shocked fear under the rage.

Astrid twists under Toothless' paw, tearing her eyes away from the fangs a breath from her face and trying to see, following the sound. When the weight on her lightens enough so she can do so, she at first does not notice, gaping at the sight before her eyes, upside down as it is.

One of the cages on the opposite side of the room is wide open, and dragons are slinking out with their eyes fixed on the open hatch, rustling their wings and shuffling anxiously, making small halfhearted leaps and stretching their necks to stare.

And a sudden mad laugh springs from Astrid's throat, because by that door is Hiccup, hands on the latch of the cage door and the bars. He's staring fiercely past all of them, teeth bared in a smile more than half a snarl, and she doesn't need to look around to know that he and Drago are staring each other down. Fearless now, and defiant in the face of his enemy, and for all he's standing tall like any man she can almost see the dragon he thinks of himself as like a ghost around him, burning bright.

As she cries out in surprise and delight, Toothless laughs with her – it is a gurgling sort of chuckle – and lets her up.

His eyes are shining and clear and wide open, now; his teeth are retracted, she sees in the gap before he licks that mad drool from his jaws and closes them; those strange black ears of his perk up in amusement.

No threat, never any threat – a trick, all a trick!

"Close the hatch!" Drago roars, sounding as if all of Toothless' pretend madness has been placed on him.

"Get that lever!" Astrid shouts over him, scrambling to her feet and daring to reach out and place a hand on Toothless' nose, just briefly, hoping he understands her gratitude and relief. He startles a bit at her touch, and she takes her hand away again quickly.

To their credit, the sudden reversal doesn't slow her friends down at all. They've all had a lifetime of living with the twins' pranks – the twins themselves a lifetime of pulling off those pranks – and they adapt at the snap of fingers.

"Charge!" Snotlout roars, and leads the race for the hatch control.

The few men still guarding the lever brace for the stampede barreling towards them, but fire blasts past them all, striking against the lever and sending the soldiers scattering. They break for the door they'd come in by, or the tunnel where the dragons came from, unwilling to fight dragons that actually fight back and the Vikings chasing them down. More fire from Toothless speeds them on their way as they retreat while their master isn't looking.

Drago sees none of it. Incandescent with rage and roaring much like a dragon himself, the warlord advances on Hiccup and the dragons the Wildfire has released from their cages. These are no army dragons, Astrid can see in a glance. They limp and cower, staring up at the open hatch as if it's something incomprehensible, and all of them bear deep scars.

Toothless turns his back on her without a second glance, leaping to Hiccup's defense. Scratching deep gouges in the sand like he's preparing to charge and snarling, blocking Drago's path, he draws in a quick breath and fires a purple-blue blast straight at their enemy.

Astrid hopes to see the mad warlord vanish in fire, but he wraps his black cloak around himself and the Night Fury's flames explode and gutter out against it. It stops him for a moment, though, and as he shelters behind his cloak, the first of Hiccup's escapees takes off and makes a break for the open hatch, closely followed by a second.

Seeing them do so gives Astrid a crazy, wild idea. She'd known they'd need to fly to be able to escape through the dragon door, but there are all these dragons, now…

"Follow me!" she shouts to her friends, who are momentarily dumbstruck, watching the duel between dragon-fire and dragon-proof shield or, in Fishlegs' case, trying to spot Hiccup where he's vanished into the crowd of escaping dragons.

Even now she doesn't dare to try to ride Toothless. _No one_ does that but Hiccup. She'd rather take her chances with strange dragons, all-but-wild dragons, dragons that seem to want more than anything to get out of here.

If they can only get out of this arena, she'll work out what to do next from there, but they have to get out of this death trap before Drago decides to stop playing around with feeding them to dragons and just goes after them with a sword!

So instead she runs towards the huddle of dragons with her friends close on her heels, wondering how she's going to ask them for help. More of them are taking off, now, launching towards the open hatch and spiraling upwards, and more than ever she regrets her inability to speak fluently as dragons do, as Hiccup does. She can convince a newcomer to Berk that humans are friendly, sometimes, but she doesn't know how to make these dragons understand that these humans they've never met before need a lift.

They startle away as the humans get closer, and Astrid stops at what she hopes is a safe distance, raising her hands defensively. She can't resist a glance over her shoulder to check on Toothless. He's still holding Drago back, but he can't maintain a constant blast of fire the way a Monstrous Nightmare like Fearsome or a Nadder like Stormfly can, and he's being forced into retreat in the moments when he breathes in and Drago can swipe at him with that hooked staff and roar at him as if Toothless could be beaten into submission with sound.

She sees the Night Fury shake his head as if plagued by flies in his ears, and roar louder – between the two of them, the arena is ringing like an echo canyon, even louder than a confrontational town meeting back on Berk. Astrid doesn't pretend to know what power shouting could have over Toothless. She can only focus on hoping her friends can be part of this jailbreak too.

And then Hiccup leaps to the back of one of the dragons still milling around and clinging to each other for support and encouragement. He places a hand on the back of its neck to get its attention, and as he does so Astrid thinks for a moment that he's sprouted dragon-scales of his own. He can't possibly have, but at the same time she wouldn't put it past him.

When the dragon turns to look at him, he whistles to it, and then looks down at Astrid directly and taps its shoulder, beckoning to her.

 _You_ , he signs, _up!_

He does understand, she realizes, rejoicing. He knows that they have a common enemy, he sees that they're trying to run away too, and he's found a way for everyone to escape.

She suspects it's not really about her, though, as she approaches the dragon he'd signaled her to and tentatively climbs to its back. She couldn't put a name to it, and she doesn't care – it's sinuous and a dappled sort of reddish-brown and trembling slightly as she touches it, and its neck is thin enough that she can wrap her arms around it and hold on to her own wrists.

"Come on!" she calls to the others.

"All right!" Tuffnut cheers. "Hi Mister Dragon, I don't know who you are, let's get out of here, okay? I bet we can beat my sister to the first cloud, how about it?"

"No way!" Ruffnut yells back at him. "We're gonna get out of here first, right?" she assures the stripy orange-yellow dragon she's decided is hers. "Come on, Eret!"

Eret does not look happy about any of this. "Uh, maybe I'll just nip out and meet you up top…" he wavers, glancing around for the quickest route to the door.

"No way! Get up here!" Ruffnut demands. "Snotlout! Make him get up here!"

"Wait, what?" Snotlout protests. "How come I gotta… Fine!" he gives up. Ruffnut is once again abusing her recently found powers to boss him around, but for once Astrid doesn't feel like rolling her eyes.

Faced with the choice of flying on dragonback, having Snotlout come after him and throw him somewhere, or having Ruffnut come after him and haul him along to her stripy dragon, Eret goes with flying and climbs onto an already-nervous dragon at random just as the dragon bearing Fishlegs takes off for the still-open hatch. Astrid suspects she heard a cry of "Wow!" in amidst the yowling and screeching of frightened dragons, but the humans scattered among them make plenty of noise of their own as their borrowed mounts decide that enough is enough and that whatever is outside has to be better than being here.

She couldn't agree more.

Astrid's last sight of the pit is a glance back as her new friend gets up enough speed to soar upwards through the still wide-open hatch. She sees Toothless running out of space to retreat towards the last remaining dragons, and Hiccup leaping from the shoulders of a stocky blue-green dragon directly to Toothless' own shoulders. She can see the two of them reunited, like a gear clicking into place and biting deep, and hear their howl of triumph over Drago's scream of rage.

Her last thought before the world turns into a rushing tunnel is that this hasn't been about getting the Vikings out. This is about spiting Drago Bludvist, getting back at the man who put Hiccup in a cage by taking as many dragons as he can out of their own cages.

The flight through the hatch is a blur as Astrid hangs on tight and presses her face against unfamiliar scales and struggles just to not fall. But she can't help her own whoop of delight at the sea-spray smell of flight and freedom, the sharp shock of ice-cold air and the sight of sunlight diffused by thick clouds, even if it is further broken by the shadows of the fully-deployed dragon army still circling and drifting everywhere, flowing around each other like a river.

Daylight feels like a miracle, a lifetime and a leap between worlds, but the colors around her are no rainbow of a bridge – they are the scales of a menagerie of dragons and glints of light off armor that lance into her eyes and the menacing symbols painted onto the sails flapping around her as her borrowed dragon nearly collides with them and twists away erratically, scrambling for balance. Its whine of fear and panic thrums through her legs where they wrap around its chest, and its flight is rough and stumbling.

"It's okay, it's okay," she tells it like a prayer, not daring to take her hands away from their death grip on each other to pat it in the only comfort she can offer. "Good dragon. We'll be all right. Easy now…"

A flight of dragons dives past them, and her mount shrieks and veers away, trying to find clear space. The air is full of dragons, more dragons than she's ever seen in one place before, except for once. Except for the morning her world ended and was reborn, when there were enough dragons in the sky to blot out the rising sun.

This, too, is the end of a world, and young as it is, that new world will be so much easier to slay.

When she twists around to look back down, in a brief moment of balance as her dragon finds its wings and climbs higher, she catches a glimpse of Toothless' dark shadow racing out of the hatch right before it closes, flying out from the narrowest of gaps like a seed squeezed between thumb and fingers. Drago must have finally gotten to that lever and tried to shut them in before they could escape with the others, and Astrid gives in to the temptation of a triumphant shout, even when it makes her ride startle again.

Riding an untrained dragon without a harness is an adventure and a half, but by balancing on the very edge of falling to her death far below, Astrid still manages to watch the two of them gain height, darting through the chaos of the dragon army with as much confidence as if they navigate swarms of hostile dragons every day, and circle to get their bearings. So she sees the moment when that confidence falters and Toothless' flawless movements almost stall, as if something has surprised them.

An instant later they've recovered and are disappearing into the thick cloud cover at full speed, black shadow lost in white expanse and swallowed up as if they had never been.

"Thanks, Hiccup," Astrid says anyway, and then "No!" as a squadron of dragons breaks off from their aimless circling above the fleet and sets off in clear pursuit.

Cursing, Astrid realizes there's nothing she can do. She can only have faith in Hiccup and Toothless to be able to out-fly their pursuers or lose them in the overcast sky.

Even if they escape, which she believes they will, having _seen_ them fly, she will still worry for him. He and Toothless may be well away from that monster of a man Drago, but she saw how scared Hiccup was, and she suspects it will be a very long time before either of them will be willing to go near any human at all ever again.

But later. Later. Right now she and her people aren't out of danger yet.

Not even close. With Hiccup and his peculiar magic with dragons gone, her borrowed mount is shuddering beneath her. Whether it's from fear of her or fear of the army dragons all around, which are beginning to notice the intruder in their midst and snarl, Astrid doesn't want to abuse the kindness she's been shown.

And if they're going to be fighting their way out and back to Berk through battle-trained dragons wearing armor and with a distinct advantage of numbers, Astrid wants to do so from _Stormfly_ 's back and her own familiar saddle and safety straps.

"Eret!" she yells into the wind, searching for the dragon-trapper amidst the swarm of hundreds of dragons, maybe thousands. "Dammit… _To me!_ " she roars as loud as she can, borrowing Stoick's chiefing voice again and testing it to its limit. Beneath her, her borrowed dragon twitches and whimpers almost inaudibly – she feels the sound more than she hears it. "Sorry," she whispers to it, and then roars again, " _Vikings of Berk, dragon-riders, to me!_ "

That shudder tells her clearly not to kick the dragon she's riding to make it go where she wants. She knows better. There's a long scar across its shoulder, where something has worn the scales away, and she wonders what it has endured. Instead she taps its shoulder, well away from that scar, and points when it rolls an eye back to look at her. She calls " _Please?"_ and hopes it'll understand her tone of voice the way Hiccup does.

In this way, and with many false starts and untimely stops as the dragon shies away from everything from the army's snapping jaws to a threatening piece of flapping sailcloth, Astrid manages to gather her people to her.

"You said you could find our dragons!" she shouts over to Eret when she's close enough to do so.

Eret looks none the better for wear, clinging to his dragon and pointedly not looking down. "Seriously?" he croaks. "You're worried about that now?"

"Yes!" Astrid all but screams. "Dragons aren't interchangeable pieces! They're our friends! And this one wants me off its back _now!_ "

"Mine too!" Fishlegs yells over, and this is immediately backed up by everyone else.

"So which ship?" Astrid demands.

"Oh, I don't want to look down, it's very high…" Eret complains, but when he sees that no one else is bothered by this – Astrid has known the twins to jump from Barf and Belch and expect the Zippleback to catch them, and someday she's going to admit that occasionally she and Stormfly have played the same game, but sometimes from cliffs, for variation – he grits his teeth and looks around and down at the ships below.

"That one!" he decides, pointing to a ship with a stylized boar's head on the sail.

"You're sure!"

"Yes!"

At this point, trusting him seems like the least crazy idea she's had recently.

It takes a while to convince their thoroughly spooked dragons that yes, they _do_ want to go back down to where scary things are, but they arrive at the ship with the boar's head sail eventually. By that point, the best Astrid can say for their flying is that if anyone was trying to track them among all the other dragons in the sky, that tracker must be very confused by now. The army seems to be flying around at random, tight knots of dragons spiraling in circular holding patterns and diving towards the sea before fleeing upwards again, and even diving towards the decks of ships briefly but never quite landing, so they are concealed in the general movement.

The dragons land reluctantly, but they take off and flee as soon as the humans are off their backs. Astrid hopes they find somewhere safer, somewhere where humans won't put them in cages or even ride on their backs and make them go places they don't want to. Maybe they'll find wherever Hiccup and Toothless disappear to.

They've landed in an area of the ship far away from the humans crewing it, in what looks like a storage area from the number of barrels and crates they're now hiding behind. It's a cargo ship, Eret says in a whisper, not a warship. Fewer soldiers, but still well-guarded, if only to keep people from rowing over and stealing extra food or anything else they decide they want. And it's where privateers like him bring their cargoes and get paid.

"That's great," Snotlout hisses back, most insincerely. "Are our dragons here or not?"

Eret turns to peek out between some of the barrels. "Hey, I said I'd get you here. Take a look."

The Vikings nearly pile all over each other to look out on deck, and Astrid has to kick them to make them take turns before it turns into a brawl. When it's her turn, after Fishlegs has shuffled away cradling a bruised elbow but grinning dreamily, she takes in the terrain.

There are a couple of dozen people out on deck, moving crates around and handing them off over the side to a smaller rowboat. It's low in the water and already heavily laden, and Astrid thinks she might have caught the words "last trip" from the people working around it. But she doesn't care about that.

She cares about the large cages also out on deck, cages big enough for dragons to stand up and pace in, but not big enough to fly. She cares about Stormfly, as her best friend rustles her wings disconsolately and shifts around, teeth clacking slightly inside the muzzle wrapped around the Nadder's jaw.

Beyond her, there are other cages. She recognizes Fearsome and Barf and Belch in the bigger ones, and Minnow and Dark Deep in separate smaller ones. They're all muzzled, but none of them seem hurt, and no one has removed their harnesses. While they're not _happy_ , they're not acting like the wildly aggressive armored dragons in the arena. The two Gronkles have settled into blocky, rough-skinned heaps and are staring at nothing much, and only Fearsome is snarling and slamming himself against the bars whenever someone steps too close. But then that's normal behavior, for Fearsome.

"Eret," she says, grinning, "you just earned yourself a new ship."

"Come on!" Snotlout says eagerly, balling his hands into fists. "Who wants to take over a ship and get their dragon back?"

"Uh, there are a lot more of them than there are of us," Fishlegs points out, and ducks before Snotlout can hit him instead. "Maybe we should find some weapons first?"

"We're on a cargo ship," Astrid intervenes before they can actually come to blows. She's in charge of hitting people at the moment. Among Berk's Vikings, that's what all too often passes for leadership. "For an _army._ One of these boxes has to have weapons in them."

A brief but productive few minutes of breaking into crates and barrels and chests yields more weapons than they can actually carry between the lot of them, although Snotlout makes a heroic effort to have a weapon in both hands, one held in the crook of each elbow, and an extra one between his teeth.

"Hey, I have another idea!" Ruffnut says, rummaging in a crate that had been abandoned by the boys for not containing enough weaponry. "How about a distraction?"

"Ooh, yes! We are very distracting. We are so distracting, even _I_ don't know what we're going to do next!" Tuffnut agrees from beneath another helmet that he's wearing on top of his regular helmet. He looks both absurd and absurdly happy about it. "Distractions are awesome. Hey, sis, what's the distraction?"

"Uh, how about _you two_?" Snotlout suggests. "We could toss the two of you out there, you could do…whatever it is you do…and those guys out there will be so confused we'll be able to sneak right past them."

"Not at all!" proclaims Ruffnut. "Well, a little bit. Maybe. The distraction is this!"

Everyone blinks at the things in her hands.

"Aha!" Tuffnut says, and grins. "A most excellent distraction indeed!"

"Those are cleaning rags," Eret says what everyone's thinking. "Do I want to know how you're going to take over a ship with cleaning rags?"

"Aw," Ruffnut says cheerfully. "He's cute when he's stupid, isn't he?" While Eret blinks, knowing he's been insulted but unsure what to do about it, she grins and says, "Watch this! C'mon, Tuff!"

They crouch behind the barrels and raise their arms, waving the tied-together string of colorful rags back and forth.

Nothing happens for a moment.

"Um…" Fishlegs says.

"Quiet!" Tuffnut commands, making an exaggerated _shush!_ gesture with his free hand. "Let the flags work their magic."

Astrid is about to – the horror – go with Snotlout's plan of tossing the twins out in the open and trusting that they'll be a distraction all their own, when a rhythmic thumping starts up out on deck, and people start shouting in confusion.

She can't help it. She has to look.

In their cage, Barf and Belch are staring up at the brightly waving 'magic flags' with expressions of idiotic delight, rocking back and forth from one side to the other and bobbing their heads up and down at the end of their long necks. Their tails wave as they stomp their left feet, their right feet, their left feet, their right feet…

"You _did_ teach Barf and Belch to dance!" Astrid blurts out.

"You betcha!" says Ruffnut.

It's certainly got the crew's attention. Probably none of them have ever seen a Zippleback do anything so ridiculous.

" _Now_ can we charge?" Snotlout all but begs, the knife dropping from his teeth and clattering to the deck, inaudible under the sound of Barf and Belch's feet.

Astrid has never been so happy to shout "Charge!"

No one on the ship's crew is prepared to be attacked by screaming Vikings brandishing a truly mad assortment of weapons. Astrid lays about with her new axe gleefully, using the flat more than the blade and sending people running for cover or, failing that, escape. In the face of Snotlout running at them screaming that battle cry of his, waving a sword in either hand and head-butting people with the horns on his helmet, jumping overboard must seem like the better option, whether there's a rowboat underneath them or not.

Fishlegs uses a spear more like a staff, giving any of the crew unfortunate enough to be in his path quick lessons in dragon-free flying. And the twins put their string of flags to good use, swinging low to trip up unsuspecting people and run right over them, or swinging high to catch them across the throat and leave gagging, coughing fighters in their wake.

Astrid is almost sorry that the ship is theirs so quickly. After days of biting her tongue and living in fear, she'd been having fun.

"Did we get everyone?" Fishlegs asks, still laughing and shaking a bit with excitement.

"Of course we did," Snotlout says, smirking. "Because we are awesome. Unlike someone _else_ on this boat."

"Oh, you mean me?" retorts Eret, stepping out from behind a pile of draped fabric that might have been a tent before someone, possibly several men in armor pursued by shrieking twins, ran over it. "So I suppose you weren't worried about this guy – and his alarm call?" He holds up a stunned man in leather armor in one hand, and a signal horn in another.

"…I knew that," says Snotlout, and more or less shuts up while they put the sentry into the last remaining rowboat and launch it. The ship proves to be moving forward on its own, especially after Eret locks the tiller in place with a clever rope rigging, so the boat drifts away from the ship rapidly, catching a small current.

But everyone forgets about it at once next to the far more important sounds of joyful recognition that their dragons are making from behind their muzzles. A quick search turns up the simple keys to cages and muzzles both.

Astrid has never, never been so happy to see someone as she is when Stormfly manages to stop dancing and waving her wings and hold still long enough for Astrid to snap off the muzzle. Released, her Nadder friend cries out happily and practically knocks Astrid to the deck in her haste to nuzzle and sniff and lick at her. Laughing, Astrid finds herself belly-down on Stormfly's nose as the Nadder raises it into the air and tosses her up and down.

"Good girl," Astrid coos to her, not caring at all that her hands are practically in Stormfly's mouth as she holds on as tightly as she can. "Good girl. Best girl. That's my Stormfly. I came back! It's okay. Brave girl. Put me down?"

It's hard to be scared of the coming war with Stormfly purring against her, as Astrid leans against her chest and hugs as much of the Nadder as she can reach. The warmth of the dragon gives her new courage and fresh hope. Of course, of course they'll fight to defend this. Of course they will. And they'll fight all the harder because they have something real to protect.

Around her, she can hear her friends similarly comforting and celebrating with their dragons, and she knows that if even as mismatched a group as they are can work together and survive, surely Berk can do the same.

It's a much happier ship by the time Eret rolls his eyes and says, "So now you've got your dragons. Let's get out of here before someone notices and Drago comes after us!"

"How about the ship?" Snotlout demands, slightly scorched from Fearsome's welcome, which had been more along the lines of scolding his rider for daring to be away so long and letting stupid people mistreat the grumpy Nightmare. "Can we keep the ship? And by we, of course, I mean _me._ "

"Hey, if he gets a ship, I want a ship too!" interrupts Tuffnut. "Let's go get another one!"

Almost literally the last thing she needs to worry about right now is Snotlout's ambitions towards piracy. It would be nice if her biggest problem was once again Snotlout and his minions conspiring to steal a ship and terrorize the Archipelago, but they really do have other things to think about.

"No," Astrid says firmly. "And no. We're getting out of here before these ships get where they're going and we get dragged into a war!"

This is a good plan. Astrid likes this plan.

Immediately, something goes wrong with it as Fishlegs says, "Um…"

"Um _what?"_

He clears his throat and stares at her remorsefully from between his Gronkles, which are all but glued to his sides trying to squash him thinner. " _Um_ , you mean, like that one?"

Everyone, Viking and dragon and dragon-trapper alike, looks up.

The dragon army had flamed and clawed at the escaping dragons and their temporary riders, as they'd wavered through and darted from point to point, looking for an escape, but for the most part they've been behaving themselves, without fighting among themselves the way they had in the arena before Drago had called them to order.

But now there are tangles in that order, blasts of flames erupting across the sky as dragons break formation and turn to fight, as other dragons dive out of the cloud cover and into the growing melee.

Screams and roars and shrieks start to echo down to the ships as, above them, a war of dragons breaks out.

"Oh, gods…" whispers Astrid.

Beside her, Stormfly bristles and hisses and hunches over her protectively.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	16. Chapter 16

_**Stormfall,**_ **Part Sixteen/Interlude**

 _Meanwhile…_

Stoick's up early the morning after Astrid takes her ship out from Berk with her crew of misfits aboard. It's not that he's slept enough – he never does. Being the chief of Berk is exhausting. Someone _always_ wants something of him, unless they're all hiding from him because he happened to snap at one or two of them. But he hasn't slept well since that trapper landed on Berk and promptly picked a fight with his wild son; when he dozes he dreams of the battles Hiccup must have faced alone out there. Sometimes he remembers that Toothless would have been with the boy, the Night Fury a fearsome and constant shadow; sometimes he forgets and imagines only the child he never saw.

Restlessly, he wanders through town in the faint light of early morning, checking that everything is as it should be.

No one is shouting, so all seems to be well, and the chief settles down on the steps up to one of the more rickety watchtowers, looking over his village as it comes to life. He also notes that this watchtower is one of the things they'll have to get around to fixing as soon as possible. Dragons roosting in the spindly thing all the time are almost as bad for it as dragons trying to blow it up every so often.

This watchtower, then, and others besides, strongly built enough that they won't burn at a stray blast of fire or topple at a sideways swipe from a catapult. He imagines Berk's harbor filled with ships bristling for war, the high cliffs and steep slopes of his topsy-turvy village armed and ready again. They will have to turn the building work they've been doing away from the decorations and dragon stables and elaborate projects that have sprung up recently and more towards guard posts and defenses.

No matter. No matter that they've been turning away from war, after all those years of suffering, and trying to figure out a different future. War is something they know how to do.

So when his people start showing their faces, he puts them to work. Those with some experience as stonemasons he sends off to the quarries to start bringing stone up to the village, and forbids them to let the Gronkles eat most of it before they get back into town. That's happened, before. The stocky dragons tag along in their wake every time their carts head off down the slope. Not long ago a cart that started off full and heavy ended up empty and light by the time the man hauling it arrived in the village, and he hadn't noticed a thing, protesting that he just thought his work had gotten easier because he'd gotten warmed up.

Berk's harbor is full of hazards, low ridges and sharp hidden spires right below the waterline, so even if the Gronkles eat all the supplies meant for fortifications, Stoick wouldn't wager too boldly on any ship racing blind to the attack.

They've been at peace, but they're not defenseless, and he is determined to make any attack as painful for their enemies as it will be for his people.

He wonders, as he labors alongside people he's known all his life, people whose lives he is responsible for, what the dragons make of the changed footing. He wishes he could talk to them the way Hiccup does, or even to the extent that Astrid has learned to, and then chides himself for asking such idle questions, even of himself.

But Valka would have been so proud of him, for asking them.

He can stir up his people and explain what they're facing, but how can he explain to dragons that they're in as much danger? Now that he knows what the eyes of dragons look like when they're happy, he can compare them with memories he has buried for years of Drago's armored, warlike beasts, and the difference sends chills from the nape of his neck to his toes as they curl in his boots. Drago's creatures had been dulled and mindless slaves, not even with the cunning and hunger of the raiders that had plagued Berk for so long.

It's in an afternoon break from the work – as Vikings slap each other on the back and tell blatant lies about how much work they've done today, more than anyone else, certainly, and laugh about what great defenses they're going to be, and maybe they should leave some holes in them so that there's someone to fight, at least – that Stoick realizes that the dragons do understand some of it, at least.

He's almost gotten used to seeing Zipplebacks sprawled lazily across rooftops and Nightmares nesting in the tall torches, but today their shadows have been replaced by those of catapults and shield walls, and those dragons are nowhere to be seen.

When he walks through town, he sees Vikings lining up, more or less, to sharpen their favorite weapons at the forge. Gobber's doing as much to put an edge on things as the whetstone is, from the sound of it.

"Aye, and what've ye been doin' to this puir blade, man, chopping stones with 'er? Shame on ye, treatin' a fine blade such a way!"

The whetstone hums to life as two of the bratty kids who usually follow Snotlout around being worse than him stomp on the pedals and practically batter themselves to pieces in an attempt to out-do each other. When Gobber lowers the blade to it and the metal begins to scream in protest, Stoick catches movement out of the corner of his eye.

A Nadder huddled in a corner between two houses springs to life and stares, wings spreading and closing nervously. Cowering, it shuffles away from the sound, making unhappy-sounding _creeeee_ noises, until it has clear air to fly away.

Stoick watches it go, disappearing into the higher cliffs, and curses.

"Should ha' been here earlier, Stoick!" Gobber says cheerfully. "Bit of a line by now, but since these layabouts –" He glares at the boys, who pull faces back at him but keep the treadle going. "– have it going well enough fer now, ye can jump the line if ye want. Sure and no one would object, right lads?"

The aforementioned line looks like they actually would like to object, but they aren't what Stoick is worried about.

"Did you see that dragon go?" he asks instead, pointing off towards where it had vanished and broadening his gesture into a wave to indicate the rest of the village, which is more or less dragon-free except for the odd underfoot Terror. Nothing will keep the Terrors out of the village. They're all eyes and bellies and not a ladleful of brains between the lot of them, and the wealth of trash heaps and children who will feed them keep them quite happy.

Gobber scratches his head with the hook he's using as a hand, risking blunting the hook more than hurting himself. The canny old smith has been known to boast that he has a hide thicker than a dragon's, and he might not be wrong. "Nadder, right? Green little thing? So?"

"We're scaring them off," Stoick says, gritting his teeth. "Just when we need them most, we're scaring them."

"Oh, aye, dragons are clever beasties," Gobber agrees. "Saw a Nightmare have a hissy fit over a catapult in its favorite perching spot this morning. Went quite pale and stormed off in a huff, scales all smoking."

"They remember."

Those words are the doom of their defenses, but perhaps he can't blame the beasts. It wasn't all that long ago that these weapons were being leveled at them and woven blaze-balls were being stockpiled against dragon attacks.

Stoick never got to recognize any of them during the raids the way he knows many favored pets by sight now, but surely many of their old enemies have turned their scales and come in out of the snow and the dark to be friends instead. Even if he did recognize any of them on sight, or remember a time a particular dragon's claws scythed against his armor or smashed past a warrior to steal hard-won food, the truce between dragon and Viking means he wouldn't blame any of them for it now. But it's not an easy truce, sometimes. They've all been learning as they go.

No wonder the sight of preparations for war have them spooked. The mood in the village is grim, and if it feels like the return of the bad old days to Stoick, what must it feel like to a dragon, sensitive to things unspoken as they are?

Looking again at the pieces of Berk he can see from the smithy, Stoick sees the few remaining dragons sidling away out of town. Dragons that normally behave themselves as well as can be expected are not coming when called, much to the frustration of their human friends, and are disobeying even simple instructions. They're hackling and snarling at loud noises and visible weapons, and Berk is full of loud noises and visible weapons right now.

"Things'll settle," Gobber tries to assure him, adding, "Did I say ye could stop?" when his co-opted assistants start to let the whetstone slow. "Let 'em see it's nae about them, and they'll come home."

Stoick isn't so sure. "Maybe," he grumbles, and stomps off to check on their food supplies and make sure the well is running full before Gobber can rope him into a demonstration of the hissing, ticking, creaking device the chief can see half-built in the back of the forge.

Sometimes he wishes his old friend made a better lieutenant. As it is, Gobber is fantastic at getting things done, but he never fails to offend everyone in range of sight and sound, not to mention smell. Stoick needs his people pulling together, not squabbling among themselves until the moment the warlord's fleet shows up on the horizon.

The idea is starting to get through to people, he notices as he paces his village and listens. Stoick called a clan meeting the night before, after Astrid and her crew had left, and explained for the second time. His Vikings have been having trouble with the idea of a sudden attack from someone they don't know anything about. Most wars in the Archipelago – at least, between Vikings – start with an insult or an offense, or family feuds that have been going on forever so that no one knows what started them, only that they can't trust those people to the west of here…

Now it seems that the idea has finally sunk in, and from eavesdropping, Stoick is caught between amusement and horror when he figures out why.

That they could be attacked from nowhere, with no obvious reason, isn't the way things happen around here. But the idea that Astrid and her exploratory crew might upset someone, and that person might chase them home and retaliate – that, Vikings understand, readily!

Stoick would be offended on Astrid's behalf if she'd gone out alone, but it helps that everyone understands that the _others_ she'd taken with her could provoke the rocks themselves.

And, more than once, he overhears the protest that "No one's taking my dragon from me!"

That, to Stoick's surprise, carries some weight.

He can't pretend he understands that. Vikings protect their families, of course; they protect their honor; they protect their homes; they protect the tribe. But _dragons?_

How did it come to pass that a dragon could become as treasured as one's own home?

Stoick doesn't have a pet dragon of his own. Even now, part of him can't stop seeing them as the beasts that took his wife and son and destroyed the heart of his life. He's willing to treat them as allies, and they're decent enough neighbors these days. He remembers yesterday morning with a pang – he misses Astrid already. It's strange to be organizing preparations for war without his little lieutenant at his side.

She and that Nadder of hers had been out flying, and he had come to see her off. As they talked, the chief and his chosen heir, the blue dragon had nosed at him.

Stoick isn't particularly attached to Astrid's pet, but some whimsy had gripped him and he'd held out a hand to the beast as well, letting it…her…sniff at his palm and nudge his fingers until he scratched her overlarge nose. "You look after her," he had told Stormfly, although he doubted that she had understood a word.

Astrid had been delighted, looking like she was trying to suppress a laugh. "Chief, I didn't think you and Stormfly got along."

"Ach, well, she's better-behaved than some of my own people, I'll say that for her," Stoick had said gruffly.

But he's not ready to invite a dragon into his own home and his own heart and make it part of his family. What family does he have to offer one, as it is? He is content enough that the dragons should live among his people. As long as they are here, Hiccup might turn up every so often.

And his wild, strange son has done, more than once. But he's so wary, still. It breaks Stoick's heart. It's clear even to the chief's eyes that humans don't interest Hiccup the way dragons do. Maybe he's not terrified of the Vikings of Berk anymore, but the next step forward seems to be nothing more than indifference, with Hiccup relegating even his father to the background far behind the dragons he could be playing with instead.

Only once, Stoick thinks, having climbed up the path towards the former dragon-training pit to look out over his bustling, chaotic village, has he been able to feel like a father to his son in the days after the war.

That's all he wants.

He'd sacrifice much, for that.

It had been a few months ago, not long after the shallow spring had broken, when the winds and the weather had been like spears thrown between advancing summer and the last-ditch death rattles of winter. Without any sort of warning or any discernable reason, Hiccup had blown back into town with his…twin brother? It's the only sense Stoick can make of Hiccup's garbled but persistent declarations that they are the same, or that Valka (however much the sound of his son mangling her name hurts) was the Night Fury's mother too.

But within the day, as Stoick crept around his own town trying to keep an eye on them and maybe try to speak just a few words to his wild son, the chief had seen the boy coughing and wheezing and retching, in the few moments when he wasn't curled up under Toothless' wing, high on one of the cliffs surrounding the village. The Fury had nosed at him anxiously and glared at any human who dared to come anywhere near.

Toothless had stopped short of roaring at Stoick, but the look in the dragon's eyes had made even Stoick hesitate to get closer, even as he'd heard his son hurting, struggling to breathe, under the sound of that rumbling, thunderous growl.

The next morning he'd found them in the forge. It was probably the warmest place on Berk that wasn't closed and locked against the weather, and Stoick could readily imagine the two of them venturing out among the houses, looking all around for somewhere safe to hide. The ground outside was churned up with the footprints of dragons, and the occasional shed scale underfoot had betrayed that Berk's live-in dragon flock had kept them company through the night.

Toothless had been sleeping lightly, eyes flickering as if tracking a flight of birds even in his sleep, and Hiccup –

Nothing of the boy was visible, hidden beneath one of the Fury's wings, but the sound of his breathing, rough and uneven, had torn at Stoick's throat.

No sooner had he taken a step closer than Toothless' head had come up and the chief had found himself staring down jade-green, flint-hard eyes, narrowed in threat.

Toothless baffles Stoick, still. The Fury is violence and adoration forged together into a blade as beautiful as it is deadly, and he is so tuned to Hiccup that Stoick wonders sometimes if Toothless might not be a real creature, and instead Hiccup's own fervent, dragon-like spirit given flesh and form.

He wishes he'd seen Valka with this glorious demon of a dragon. How had they found each other, and had the Fury truly learned to love her so? What had it meant, that Valka had been mother to a true-born dragon, not just the strange creature caught between worlds that Hiccup has become? Do dragons cry, when woken from naps unexpectedly? Do they scream for treats or do foolish things even when they're told not to or run around in wild packs squabbling together? Had the Night Fury been small and sweet once, a baby rather than a lethal guardian?

Why, he still wonders, hadn't Valka come _home_?

Surely, if that was what it took to have her and their son back, he would have accepted a baby Night Fury into the mix.

…wouldn't he?

But in the longest, darkest nights when the shadows of his grief overwhelm him, he cannot imagine such a strange family enduring all that Berk – in its war and its unwavering conviction in the evil of dragons – could have thrown at them then.

In those nights, it hurts to know that she chose her foster son over her husband.

And yet, he'd found his voice. "Easy, Toothless," Stoick had said, in the voice he would use to soothe someone hurt or dying, someone who had protected and participated in the life and defense of their village with honor and bravery and worth. "It's all right. I'll not take him from you." It was true then, and it burned then; in the memory still it is true, and still it burns.

"Humans have not been good to you, have they?" he'd asked of those bright, hard eyes, reluctant as they were to meet his for more than a few moments. "But you're safe here. You both are."

He'd lowered himself to the trodden-hard ground of the forge and waited. He'd even taken off his helmet and set it aside lest Toothless see the horns on it as a threat; for certain they can be, in a proper brawl. Stoick had settled there, speaking meaningless things as gently as he could, until Toothless had sighed reluctantly and looked away. He'd been allowed – allowed, on his own ground! The thought still irks him, a bit – to stay.

The sun had risen a little way before the chief had dared to ask for more. "Please," he had said, feeling the word catch in his throat, wondering how it could have come about that the chief of Berk should beg kindness from a dragon, "let me see him. Let me see Hiccup. Let me see my son."

He's never been sure how much human speech Toothless understands. No more than his rider, certainly, and Hiccup understands little enough of it. But maybe the dragon had understood enough, in the angle of Stoick's eyes or the pain in his voice or the hand he'd begun to reach out before remembering himself and pulling it back again. The Night Fury had folded that extended wing back, showing his dragon-boy sleeping tight against the dragon's side, arms wrapped around his face as if hiding from whatever ill luck had caught him.

The next time Hiccup had coughed desperately, Stoick hadn't been able to stop himself – no power in the world, no god, no dragon, no fear could have stopped him – from reaching out and placing one broad hand on his son's chest as it heaved.

Toothless had snarled and bared his teeth to snap and drive the chief away. In that moment Stoick didn't care a whit if the Fury bit his arm off at the elbow; he'd raised his free hand to ward off those teeth regardless, keeping his eyes on his son as he tried to toss and turn restlessly.

Once he'd been able to hold his child in that same hand, keeping him warm against the cold that threatened to take him, even then, especially then, and it had taken this long before he could do so again.

Maybe the weight had helped, steadying him. Maybe some deep-buried part of his son had recognized his father, even though Stoick suspects that it is too much to hope for. For all he knows that his son will never be the son he had wished for, that fate chose another path for him and he is long since too far down that path to ever call back, still he wants to believe.

Maybe any touch would have done the same. Stoick had wondered how often Hiccup has fallen ill and it has been a dragon's paw holding him quiet, keeping his soul pinned within his small body – for he thought he could feel ribs beneath the dragon-scale armor, thinner than even his mother had ever been, and he knew that his son has _starved_ , before.

He wondered how often it had been that cursed creature that took Valka in the place of Hiccup's true father, soothing the Viking chieftain's stolen son.

But for a moment it had been _his_ touch, as it should have been.

He treasures that memory, holding it close to his ravaged, ragged heart.

Maybe that's why he can't stand to invite one of the dragons that wander Berk into his life. It's too frayed to hold anything more than memories and fantasies.

If he's going to befriend any dragon, it should be his son, first, and Valka's _other_ child, next. They will always be first to him. There is a place for them in his life, if they will only understand that it is there for them to take, and he will not have that place filled by another.

Now there is war looming on the horizon. The work in the harbor on watchtowers devolves into an argument Stoick can hear even from the steps of the Great Hall where he's drifted in his reverie. Mulch marches around through the center of the village recruiting Vikings for a fishing trip to fill up their storehouses while beating time on his loyal, lack-witted friend Bucket's bucket where the taller man sits patiently on a crate. That insufferable brat Gustav lines people up for training matches that instantly become grudge duels and then a mad free-for-all. Among it all, Stoick prays for them to come back safely.

But guilt snaps at his heels, as hard to get rid of as a Terrible Terror that knows he has food in his pocket. It haunts him like his own shadow, whispering to him in the small moments of silence and screaming at him in a voice made of Berk's preparations for war.

It screams _coward_.

It whispers at him that to rescue his estranged son, he has sent his surrogate daughter into danger in his place.

It hisses that _he_ should have gone, that to push that duty off on Astrid was dishonorable and neglectful.

He told Astrid it was a scouting mission, but they both know the truth. He hopes that Hiccup is far, far away from Drago Bludvist, but he doubts it.

"Just be careful, all right?" he'd told her. "Don't get yourself killed."

"I will," she'd promised. "I will make everyone else be careful, which is honestly going to be the hardest part. And, chief? If Hiccup is out there, we'll find him too."

"I don't expect you to find him," Stoick had said then, and tried to tell himself that it wasn't a lie. "I'd be happier if you didn't, because I hope he's as far away from Drago Bludvist as he can get. Your priority is to find out about Drago and what he's up to. But…if you do see Hiccup…"

He couldn't figure out then how to say all that he was feeling, and he can't figure it out even now. It's not his job to feel; how can he place his own pain over his responsibilities to his people?

Quite apart from the tangled mess that is his family, part of him believes that the menace they're facing is, in some way, his fault. If he'd seen Drago Bludvist for the madman he was, back at the moot… If he'd understood the dangers of Drago's proposal rather than laughing at him… If he'd tried harder to exact vengeance for the deaths of the other chieftains in Drago's fire… His son and his people would not be in so much danger now.

The responsibility for dealing with Drago should be on the chief, not his chosen heir.

"…just look out for him, if you can. For all he's…the way he is, there's so much of his mother to him." The memory tore at his heart, and the words spilled out of the wound. "Valka would run into danger to protect something she loved every time. It's why I lost them both. Something tells me her son is no different."

Let them only get back here safely, Stoick prays, and he will make a safe place for them to stay.

He doesn't care if it makes the dragons unhappy. He knows only the least of what they'll be facing, and all of this is necessary. He still suspects it won't be enough.

By the end of the long day as the sun melts into the ocean, all of the catapults and arrow-launchers have been arrayed pointing out to sea. There should be more, but too many of them have since been broken down for parts – foolish, foolish, but how could they have known? And yet, Stoick should have known. He should have remembered that there were other dangers out there, and that not all of them have wings and breathe fire.

Another trip down to the forge, and he's gotten Gobber away from that increasingly terrifying contraption and instead put the smith in charge of razing a firebreak of sorts around the village so that they can see any attack from the land. And there are welcome discoveries, like the chain-launching winches they stole off Dagur the second time he'd tried to raid Berk when he'd known there had been dragons waiting for him there. _Dagur_ must have stolen from someone, so the Vikings of Berk had had no compunctions about claiming them as spoils of war. No one knows how to use the things, but Stoick has no shortage of volunteers to play with them when tomorrow dawns.

When it gets truly dark, he can hear the increasingly more martial mood that's seeping through the town as people haul out the old songs and rituals, light bonfires, and tell more warlike stories about long-remembered triumphs.

Part of him does hate to see what Berk was becoming turned back into this, but what other choice does he have?

But then, there is another choice. Another way. It's a terrible idea, and he shouldn't even consider it. His place is here, with his people.

* * *

All that resolve fades to nothing, washing to white and disappearing in the sun a few days later, when a panicked flight of Terrible Terrors swarms into Berk. They drop out of the sky screaming and ambush Gothi, their second-favorite person after only Astrid, where she's drilling a team of reluctant volunteers on basic battlefield treatment. Under a barrage of sharp staff-blows whenever they do something wrong, or do it too slowly, or sigh just a bit too loudly, her dragooned assistants are learning to bandage limbs and mix basic painkillers to treat the steady trickle of injuries from construction accidents and practice bouts.

Really, Stoick is going to find a lake to drop Gustav into one of these days, and not even the boy's easily-distracted and perpetually clueless mother would object.

None of Gothi's helpers do anything to peel the squawking little dragons off her, as the healer reels and staggers under a living blanket of Terrors. They just stare, with various degrees of amusement. One bright purple Terror even clings to the top of her staff, interfering with her attempts to wave it or ground it for balance, and more flutter around her peeping unhappily when there's nowhere left on her small hunched figure to land on.

"What's going on here?" Stoick demands, stomping over to find out why people are suddenly laughing. "What the – cursed little pests! Get out of it! Go on! Go home!" he shouts, clapping his hands to scare them away.

They don't go far, dodging staff blows as Gothi regains her balance. Instead they perch on the eaves of roofs and the handles of wheelbarrows and the shoulders of anyone who'll hold still long enough, wailing and whimpering.

"Silly creatures," he dismisses them, in no mood for Terror mischief on top of Gobber's team deciding that it would be faster to clear firebreaks by _setting_ fires in the first place. He never thought he'd actually hope for a Scauldron to show up around Berk, but he can certainly see a use for a water-spitting dragon in a village full of Vikings who like to light bloody forests on fire. There might have been a Nightmare involved, but none of the firebreak team will admit to that, or anything else. According to them, the fire just _happened_.

Gothi's staff hooks around his elbow before he can walk away, and he looks down to see her staring up at him, shaking her head.

Stoick doesn't need to be entirely fluent in Gothi's runes to understand her message: _they're scared_ , she's written.

"Yes, I can see that," he agrees impatiently, "but Terrors can be scared by a bucket of water, so unless you can tell me about what –"

"Hey, that's my Maple," the woman who bakes the best rolls in town breaks in. "Where's she been? Come here, my girl! What's happened to you?"

Red-and-yellow-dappled Maple flees to her human's arms immediately, bumping her head against the baker's and shrieking a protest.

"Yeah, and that's one of Fishlegs' little homing dragons, isn't it?" one of Gothi's amateur herbalists points out. "It's even wearing that message harness. Here, little thing. C'mere!" The Terror evades him for only a moment before he catches it and holds it still enough to check the pouch. "Nothing."

Stoick does not have a good feeling about this. "Check the others," he orders, and there's a flurry of activity as Gothi's trainees escape from their lessons and word gets around that anyone who's missing a pet Terror should come check here.

"All empty," Maple's human reports a few minutes later, holding a second Terror tail-forwards under her arm like a rolled-up blanket. "Maybe they got bored and came home?"

"No," says Stoick, looking down at the remains of _they're scared_ in the dust. "Something's happened."

It's like seeing the first lightning strike when he's been watching storm clouds gather all day, smelling the unmistakable scent of hard rain in the air and wondering when, wondering if…and then the skies open, and thunder rolls, and a million tiny arrows strike down, but at least he _knows_.

Stoick hates this. It hasn't been all that long since Astrid and her crew left, and they've gotten a few messages back indicating all was well when they sent them, but the return of the frightened Terrors is the clearest of bad omens he could have asked for.

He hates waiting. He waited before. Look what it got him – nothing but grief.

Regrets nag at him like the pangs of hunger when they'd lost too much to the depredations of dragons, muted but relentless. He can push them aside and ignore them, but they are part of him, and he cannot escape them.

If he'd left to find Valka when she was taken, those regrets worry at him, if he hadn't been swayed by his people's need for him – if he'd looked for her then, maybe he could have brought her home. He has always wondered what could have been, and learning what had happened has only splashed oil across those fires.

Maybe all that grief could have been averted, if only he'd _acted!_

Well, he will not make that same mistake again.

"They're in trouble," he says with the weight of knowledge in his voice. What are the Terrors, except a call for help?

The common sense and wisdom he has learned through all his long years as a leader tell him that he can't afford to leave Berk and go off questing into the unknown. He should trust Astrid to look after herself.

But it feels like abandoning her to the wilds and the forces he knows are arrayed against her, against them all. And deep inside Stoick is disgusted with himself, because those voices feel like fear.

The wild world outside his territory, beyond his Berk, holds nothing but monsters for him, and all his life he's turned his back on them and made his home as safe as he possibly can despite the monsters arrayed against him even here. Surely there were enough dangers here, without going looking for more.

And because of that, when his family was taken from him, he didn't even try. It's enough. It is enough.

Stoick will not let whatever monsters lurk beyond his borders take anyone else from him.

All eyes are on him, he realizes, from their Elder healer Gothi to the smallest little boy here to reclaim his pet Terror, the dragon wrapped around him almost as big as he is. Even the Terrors stare, seeming to sense the dilemma raging within him.

"I'm going after them," he says, slotting the words into place like stones in a wall, and the dust they kick up as they land is the ashes of all his regrets, blowing them away and perhaps letting him start again and do better this time. "Spread the word."

And maybe it's the wrong decision, as he marches down towards the docks to see which of their current collection of ships he can best mount a rescue mission aboard, but any voices telling him so are drowned out under the feeling that he's finally taking responsibility for his own mistakes.

He should have done more to ensure that Drago Bludvist never returned to threaten the clans of the Archipelago again. Drago is _his_ unfinished business, his piece of the past come back to drag him and his world under the water and into the darkness.

So _he's_ going to set that right.

* * *

Somewhat to his surprise, Stoick has plenty of volunteers for a rescue mission this time. He remembers that Astrid had come up all but dry, looking for people who would go with her to scout for Drago's fleet, but a good portion of Berk's warriors and sailors are willing to come with Stoick to scout for her.

"They love her right well, ye ken," Gobber tells him, grinning, when Stoick remarks on this to him. "They'll go out t' rescue her – and even those brats as went with her – because she's one of us, as it were. And, well…"

"Spit it out, man," Stoick growls, slamming a fist against the mast to test the strength of it. It holds up well.

"Ah…" stalls Gobber, stepping a safe distance away before he continues, "…and he's not. Your boy. It's no' his fault!" Gobber adds quickly as the chief's eyes narrow. "But ye sent Astrid out after Hiccup's trail, did ye no', for all ye said it was after this army comin' for all of us? I'd ha' gone with them, to look out fer him, for we're friends, but ye told me to stay and work on some entertaining surprises."

Stoick remains silent, so Gobber rolls on. "But to most of Berk he's a story, ye ken? Sommat out of legends. Ye see the child as needs rescuing. Most people, they don't. But Astrid and Fishlegs and even Snotlout and those trickster-spawn twins – they're neighbors and kin and kids we all saw running around in no more than a vest and one shoe, once."

"I know," the chief says finally, long after the silence has grown too deep and Gobber has started sucking on his rock tooth, clicking it in and out of his jaw in a rare nervous tic. "I don't like it. But I know."

"I trust I'm welcome along _now_ , then?" asks Gobber, in a way that Stoick recognizes as not a question.

The chief shudders. "If I bring you along, who's going to stop Spitelout from taking over while we're away?"

The blacksmith's laugh is not a pleasant sound. "I reckon Spitelout. By the time this ship gets back, he'll be so tired of the job, fer years ye'll not hear so much as a squeak out of him about thinkin' he can do your work better."

The thought manages to surprise an answering laugh out of Stoick. Spitelout may be no more than a cousin, but that's never stopped him from pushing to be more in charge than he is, and Stoick would appreciate the respite from his pestering.

They've got something rather like a council, admittedly filled by people who bother to show up and sometimes people who happen to be in the room at the time. If Berk burns down to the waterline or sinks beneath the waves in the chief's absence, at least it'll be at the hands of Berkians.

"Um, sir?" a voice he doesn't immediately recognize breaks in.

Stoick turns and scowls at the unfamiliar face. "Which one are you?" he demands.

The man flinches, and Stoick suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. At least he'd gotten his point across when he'd told Eret's crew that they could leave the cells on the condition that they made no trouble and helped with Berk's preparations for war.

Everyone knows everyone on Berk, so it's not hard to keep plenty of eyes on strangers, and they can always use extra hands for jobs no one wants to do, like plowing the fields that seem to grow mostly stones or turning over the areas the dragons tend to use as latrines. And, after all, the trappers are in just as much danger as the Berkians if Drago's army gets here before they're ready for them – Stoick chooses to believe that they _can_ be ready – and they've been allies and trading partners in the past.

Now that there's no angry Night Fury to object to their presence, the trappers have been behaving themselves so far, shadowed as they are at every step by watchful Vikings. But the dragons remember, Stoick was surprised to see. Of the dragons still remaining in the village, none of them bigger than a Terror will let any of the trappers come within reach, although the dragons stare at the men plenty as if waiting for them to make a false move.

Since they're trying to do a lot of work here in very little time, Stoick hasn't regretted this decision yet.

"I'm Andvari," the man answers, gathering up his courage. "And we'd like to come with you, sir."

"On this ship. Quite probably into the path of Drago Bludvist," Stoick outlines, deadpan. "Why?"

Andvari folds his arms and tries to glare back as if uncertain whether to be polite or stubborn. "Our captain is out there too," he says. "He's my friend. He's a good leader, and a good man. He's kept us alive even when scraping by was a miracle, and we don't want to just sit by and let him get into trouble without us. He's loyal to us, sir, so we're loyal to him."

The trapper chews on his lip for a moment, and then adds, "Besides, we know the waters you'll be sailing into, and we practically live on shipboard. You could use us. Just let us come rescue our friend too."

Stoick's smile must be closer to a grimace. "Draw the short straw, did you?"

Andvari's smile, in any case, is more a wince. "Something like that, sir."

The Viking chieftain isn't particularly thrilled about the idea of bringing along over a dozen people he doesn't know and doesn't entirely trust. His own people are experienced enough sailors, and if it comes down to a battle or a rescue mission, as he's quite sure it will, he wants people at his back whose skills and loyalty he's sure of.

But if it hadn't been for Hiccup and Toothless picking a fight with them almost as soon as they landed on Berk, Stoick would have welcomed them here, however resentfully. And he will take any allies he can get against the mad creature that is Drago Bludvist.

"It's _chief_ ," he says. "Not _sir._ "

* * *

It's not a cheerful ship that sets off from Berk and makes its way north. The ship is light enough in the water to move quickly, but it's kitted out for war and crewed with warriors, ready for a fight or a raiding rescue run, if Drago has a war fleet to go along with his dragon army the way Eret's people insist he does.

No dragons have accompanied them, even if they could have found any tame ones remaining in the village and willing to go. And the Terrors had taken one look at the ship spreading its sail and made a break for the safety of the village.

Whatever Stoick's crew is heading into, whatever Astrid and her crew had sailed into, the Terrors are not going back there.

Stoick has always preferred to stop a threat at its source than wait for it to come to him, leading more than one search for the nest the dragon raiders sprung from. He considers fires. Fires start in the island's forests every so often, from lightning strikes or careless people with lanterns out after dark or the mischief of dragons, and when those flames leap up, the Vikings don't wait for them to feed themselves into a firestorm and then throw up defenses only when that firestorm approaches the town.

No, they trap it at its source and let it burn itself out if they can.

If a firestorm gains ground, it's unstoppable, and they can only weather it as best as they can. There hasn't been one recently, but Stoick remembers the devastation, the destruction, the despair of a landscape ravaged by fire.

He doesn't want to consider that the firestorm a dragon army could kindle may already be too wild to stop, or that he is far, far too late in deciding to act. If he'd seen Drago as the madman he was even then, if he'd acted quicker…he can't stop thinking that he could have put a stop to all of this already.

Guilt is what has driven him up here, into the ice. He doesn't want the responsibility of dealing with Drago and his madness to be on his chosen heir and his only son. Drago should have been his problem, but he turned his face away, and that knowledge is an itch he can only scratch at by acting. It's not in his nature to sit idly by, but too often he's been asked to. He believed it was necessary, at the time, but all of his regrets seem to involve things he hasn't done, rather than things he did.

He didn't give Drago a second thought, in the years between the chiefs' moot and now. He regrets that. He will not look away again.

Another day on board ship, and still nothing but cold and ice. It crackles from the rigging and the shields hung from the side of the ship waiting for their warriors to take them up and carry them into battle. Most of those warriors are staying in the hold, disgruntled about returning to winter in the midst of what should be their short enough summer.

Stoick does not mind the ice so much as he does the unfamiliar waters. He's uneasy about being outside his own home territory. This isn't his place. He doesn't belong. The sun is in the wrong place, just a hair out of kilter as it spins through the sky, by all the gods!

The animals that his Vikings sight darting past the ship every so often are different. The chief recognizes seals, and what must be a whale from the size of it although no whale he's ever seen, and the fish they've caught in between shifts on deck and exercise to keep everyone in fighting trim are ones they don't see often. And the birds that soar far above are unlike any he recognizes, if they are birds. For all he knows, they may be some exotic new breed of dragon.

Ice catches in Stoick's beard, if he stays too still too long, so he keeps moving, pacing the deck. The few precious spyglasses they've brought with them are supposed to be trained on the horizon on watch for ships as often as on the sky looking for dragons, but the sailors posted on lookout, fore and aft, have them pointed upwards.

"That one's getting closer, chief," the forward lookout says as Stoick approaches her, letting the spyglass drop from her eye and dangle on the end of a woven cord. They don't have so many of the valuable tools that they can afford to lose one dropped into the dark, rough waters chopping away under the ship. The currents are erratic and unpredictable, and even the trappers who claimed that they knew the waters better than anyone have been huddling in tight knots whispering to each other and looking distressed when they think Stoick isn't watching, glancing over their shoulders as if hoping he won't hear the uncertainty in their voices.

"Want me to sound an alarm?"

Stoick borrows the spyglass from her to take a look as the wind dies and the ship slows and wallows in the stillness. His hand won't fit through the strap, but it's a good idea regardless.

"No," he decides, trying to fix the soaring shape high above in his vision. It may be moving towards them, but it hasn't attacked them yet. "Keep an eye on it, but let's save our battles for the right target."

With the spyglass back in the lookout's hands, Stoick steps away from the railing. It's not the first dragon sighting since they left the Archipelago, and three times now wild dragons have dipped down towards the ship, screaming to scare it away. It always seems to happen when there's an island on the horizon somewhere, usually no more than a low blotch that could be land or a cloud bank, so maybe the beasts think they're defending their territory.

In any case, Stoick has held his crew back from fighting the protesting, flaming dragons off. Instead he's just told them to get under cover and make sure their supplies were stowed safely in the shallow cargo hold, and they've simply waited for the attackers to go away.

They've had to put out a few fires, but the sail survived the worst of it, and the oars stowed on deck against the need for them were barely scorched. There hasn't been much wind to catch, anyway, and it's not like they know exactly where they're going.

Eret's crew has given them a general direction to follow, but their first target, a sheltered harbor just off a forbidding-looking, rocky island that looked to be riddled with deep caves, yielded nothing. The hunter at the helm that evening, Denholm, had claimed that it was a supply dump, but there had been no ships waiting there.

Now they're skirting the edges of an ice field, but the only indication they've seen that there once might have been ships here has been the occasional piece of debris. A few broken spars and a shattered piece that might have been from an oversized barrel had floated by this morning. A whiff of smoke had proved to be from an improvised hearth in the hold that the Vikings and the hunters had whipped up together.

"Hey, chief!" Gobber bellows across the deck – it's a good thing they're not trying to sneak up on anything, Stoick thinks, rolling his eyes. At this rate the fastest way to find Drago's army might be to make even more noise and hope their enemies find them, and that's not a plan Stoick feels he can put his shoulder to.

"What?" he demands, striding back to the stern of the ship where a small knot of people are fishing in the wake, huddled together for warmth.

"We're on some manner of trail, seems like," Gobber says, holding up a sodden scrap of fabric. When Stoick takes it from the hook it's draped over and rubs it between his fingers, he recognizes sailcloth.

He's about to make some grim joke about angling for fish and catching a sail when the lookout he'd spoken to before calls, "Chief!"

He doesn't need a spyglass to follow her pointing finger to the dragon diving to the attack, or the three more small shapes approaching behind it.

"Take cover!" he roars to the mixed crew out on deck. "Dragons in the sky!"

His hand itches to fill it with a weapon, even his blunt warhammer, which can knock a dragon across the village square back home when he swings it just right. He idly wonders if a strong enough strike could knock one off the edge of this narrow ship and into the ocean. But he has to set an example for his people as they scramble for cover and get ready to dodge out of the way, and if he starts a fight, they will follow.

All too quickly, the shadow in the sky resolves itself into a sinuous, blue-and-gold figure that's no type of dragon he recognizes from home, even one of the less common species that defend their islands so fiercely no humans have ever managed to settle there, stubborn as the Viking tribes of the Archipelago are. Hissing and clicking like a neglected stewpot, it hovers over the ship and looks them over, bright golden-white eyes ticking from side to side to follow the crew's movements. All of its six legs draw up beneath it protectively, and the spines on its tail bristle.

"Right then, ye axe-nosed critter," Gobber mutters audibly, "nothin' f'r ye to eat here, get along home now."

Maybe it's waiting for reinforcements, but it makes no move to attack. Instead it tags along above them as the ship slides from wave to wave, inspecting them like they're something fascinating.

If anyone asks, Stoick will put his actions squarely on the cold from the ice fields. Everyone knows that cold makes people stupid. But he shrugs his bear cloak more squarely onto his shoulders, deliberately takes his hand away from the hammer strapped to his belt, and steps out onto the deck.

"We're just passing through," he calls up to the hovering dragon. He feels strange talking to it, but maybe the sight of a human coming towards it rather than running away will startle it off. Trying to talk to it can't do any harm, he decides, except make him look foolish, and there's no great harm in talking to dragons, these days… "We're not looking for a fight, dragon."

It stares at him, fascinated, its head tipping from one side to another like someone not yet dizzy enough to fall over.

The curiosity in its gaze encourages Stoick, for all he knows the pointlessness of it. "Have you seen my son Hiccup?" he asks. "His friend Toothless? My lieutenant Astrid? We're trying to find them."

He repeats the names a few more times under the blank, confused look it's giving him, all the while keeping a wary eye of his own on the three more dragons still too high and far away to see clearly. But it's watching him rather than attacking or running away, whatever it is. So many strange kinds of dragon there are out here beyond the Archipelago…

And then without warning, it turns tail and darts upwards, back towards its friends, without a sound. It doesn't even try to turn the ship inside out for food.

What did he expect, that it would talk to him?

Stoick feels a right fool, but his Vikings seem impressed that he would face down an unknown dragon without a weapon to hand, clapping him on the back and laughing with him rather than at him. Even the trappers congratulate him on handling it "just right".

"Can't show any fear," one of them, Ascanius, says confidently. "Gotta let them know who's boss."

They raise his spirits enough that he's almost forgotten about it until a few hours later, when the next shift of lookouts spots the same dragon – or one much like it – returning with another, larger dragon in its wake. It doesn't make it to the ship, breaking off and turning back, but the larger dragon remains.

Even before it drops low enough to be seen clearly, Stoick knows it, and a wash of red and a deafening, dizzying roar of fury fill his senses.

This dragon, he knows like his own scars.

Silent and ominous, all its wings flared out, the reddish-gold beast Stoick used to dream of tracking down and slaying circles the ship until the sun is to its back, looking down on them. In glimpses as he shades his eyes, Stoick can see its teeth bared and its sharp foot-claws spread wide, ready to fight.

He hates every hand's-breadth of this creature. He hates the claws that snatched his family from him, hates all four of the wings that carried them away. He hates the face almost flat enough to be human, but there is nothing human about it. He hates the eyes that glared at him in anger, once, because he remembers pain in them too.

What Valka named the beast, Stoick will never know. Hiccup can no longer say it clearly enough for his father to pronounce. Thief, he thinks of it as. Pretender. Kidnapper. Usurper. Bane.

 _This?!_ This is what he has to ask for help from? For he cannot imagine it a coincidence that he had used the names of Valka's sons to the blue-and-gold dragon, and it had brought back the dragon that Hiccup seems to think of as his father.

Never, never.

Stoick may have given up a vow of revenge that he nurtured for twenty years, but he has never wanted to see this creature again. He will let it live. He won't reach for his warhammer, won't order arrows notched and loosed, won't seize the opportunity for a bit of target practice with the lightest of the catapults they could find to bring aboard.

But he will not ask it for help. He will not speak his son's name to it.

Instead he glares up at it, folding his arms across his chest and considering baring his own teeth back at it. He wonders if this means that they're going the right way after all. Everything seems to come out of the north of late – Eret and Hiccup and Drago alike, and now this creature too.

"Get lost!" he shouts.

* * *

Cloudjumper who is _Leaps-Over-Clouds_ growls softly, deep in his throat and chest, as he raises one wing and catches the smallest of winds to take him away again, up and back from the ship below and the _anger anger anger_ clear like roaring from the human standing on its back.

He is anxious and searching for his hatchling-pair who have disappeared again, but there is no scent of them here. There is only the angry human, and Cloudjumper bristles to see him here, so close to the nest. This is not the place for the Alpha with the red fur. Cloudjumper does not know what would have brought him here, but it does not matter.

The angry human must go away now. He does not belong here.

The sharp-nosed one who is Chases Birds had found Cloudjumper-Leaps-Over-Clouds in the air, whistling and chirping _distress_ and _curiosity_ and _fear_ and _excitement,_ and her sounds had made the noises for both of them, for Hiccup and for Toothless, so Cloudjumper had been eager to follow the trail she had found. They disappear often and wander everywhere, his little ones, but the many-winged dragon is restless for them now.

It has not been very long since they returned from a long journey the last time, and they were still settled and happy to be home again, not pacing and chattering and watching the sky and then sprawling and moaning as they do when they are eager to be away. And now they have not come home again, and Cloudjumper cannot find them in any of the places close by where he knows they like to play.

 _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ do not like it when Cloudjumper flies out to find them. They huff and whine and sulk and protest that they are _big_ dragons, not hatchlings that do not yet hear and submit to the king, they are _brave_ and _clever_ and _fierce_ dragons, and they do not _need_ him to follow them as Cloudjumper and all the flock did when they were smaller than they are now, but no less silly.

They do not say that they are silly still, but Cloudjumper knows that they are. They are reckless and always putting their noses into things, and quick to chase each other's tails and pounce and fall on their noses. Now that they know that Hiccup was first on an island far away before he was in the nest, and that Cloudjumper took him from the island to the nest, now they can complain that _Cloudjumper_ used to wander too even though he does not anymore, so it must be fine that they do too.

Cloudjumper despairs of arguing with them, but at least they are still small enough to swat when they are _too_ cheeky.

One day, he knows, they will pull the tail of something that no cleverness or quick-flying or snarling will protect them from. He does not want this to be soon.

But now he is afraid for them.

Chases Birds has found only the sound of them, and not the dragon-pair themselves, so Cloudjumper only circles the ship, wanting to blow fire at it to send it away.

The angry human shouts at him, glaring as if challenging, but it is not a sound he knows, even though Cloudjumper recognizes many human sounds. He keeps the remembering of Valka's sounds close and warm. She spoke to him often, and he learned her sounds from the ones she used many times, and the signals she made with them, and the signals in the way she spoke. He listened to her carefully, loving her no less, and when she began to speak to him and to the flock in the way of dragons he had thrummed all over with joy that she would be a dragon too with him and with their little ones.

Valka was his mate in almost every way Cloudjumper understands such things. He flew to catch her and snatched her away. The hatchling she brought with her and the hatchling she found and she and he made a nest together where they were safe and warm. He brought her things to eat when she was tired with guarding her hatchlings and things to make her happy when she was sad. She spoke to him first when she was frightened or angry, and he carried her on his shoulders because she could not fly on her own.

He protected her until he failed her. The remembered scent and sight of her hurting and then cold catches in his breath and makes a cold place inside still.

The shadows of her scent that remain in Hiccup, the deep scent in bone and blood that no licking can wash away, are the last of her living except in memory. Her children, their hatchlings, are the only trail left to track her by, always too far behind to catch, but close enough to remember. He hears her echoes in the sounds Toothless makes, sounds that she had added to the calls of the nest. He sees her still in Hiccup's stubbornness and determination and the way the dragon-child sets his shoulders when he will not back down, or when he is imagining a thing not made or a game not yet played.

But these things are only her tracks, and not his mate herself.

That they were different shapes, and so they would never fly together to fly and fall, was not important.

He loved Valka entirely and most of all. He understood her. She belonged with him! And it was a good thing to do, Cloudjumper believes, to take her and her hatchling away from this angry human. He would not have given her back even if the angry human chased him with sharp things and cornered him and _his_ mate in their nest; he would have fought for her.

If he had left Valka with the angry human, she would have become angry too. Always when Cloudjumper has seen this human, he has been angry. He cannot imagine the red-furred Alpha not angry. The strange little hatchling who was _right_ inside would have learned only anger and hatred and killing of dragons instead of purring and flight and hunting and stories and being warm together, and the bright spirit in him like dragon-fire would have been broken, and that could not be so.

Cloudjumper would not go into the territory of the angry human, except to protect his hatchling-pair, so the angry human should not come into his territory, and they can hiss and snarl at each other from very far away.

Still, he does not flame at the ship. The red-furred human was Valka's mate for a time, so he must have loved her, even though he could not have loved her as much as Cloudjumper still does. Valka would not like it for Cloudjumper to flame at him, and Hiccup and Toothless had been upset when they threatened to fight each other.

He knows that the red-furred human is an Alpha, but he is an Alpha of humans, not of dragons. So instead Cloudjumper pulls in his wings and dives, landing on the wood of the ship. Many humans scatter, but there are no sharp things pointed towards his sides, and the angry human does not run.

Glaring still, he holds his ground.

Cloudjumper mantles his wings and hisses, making small waves with his wings to push the humans away. _Go you go now now yes go now!_ he gestures, baring his teeth in _threat._

The human Alpha makes his paws tight and heavy for hitting, but he does not lift a weapon to strike with. He makes a sound that Valka made sometimes when she wanted dragons to leave, but Valka never snarled it so.

 _You!_ Cloudjumper insists, flipping a wing at his rival.

The man bares his teeth, but they are small teeth and Cloudjumper does not feel threatened by them. He has no intent to bite. Instead he says many things in a growl that becomes a shout.

But in the shouting Cloudjumper recognizes some sounds. One of them is a sound for finding things. That was a sound Valka used often, and all the dragons of the nest learned that sound, because it meant she was looking for her little ones and wanted them brought back to her from wherever they had run off to in playing.

Tipping his head a bit, Cloudjumper-Leaps-Over-Clouds looks at the man again. Underneath the anger he is worried, the many-winged dragon thinks. And he used the sounds in human voices for _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ both.

If there is more that might make sense, Cloudjumper does not see it, because an abrupt and unexpected roar of thought-sound washes over him like a storm wave that rears into the sky and strikes dragons down like a reaching paw, sending them tumbling and splashing down. He feels himself stagger, but even if he had fallen sprawled and flat to the ground before the angry human, even that would be not important next to the roar.

 _ **Danger!**_ he knows as surely as if he had heard many screams of pain and seen dragons scatter into the sky.

The humans and the ship fade from his eyes, and Cloudjumper can think only of _home_ , of the Nest that is the safest of all places, and he knows as sure as falling that he must go there, he must go there _now_ , he must go as quickly as he can.

 _ **Protect!**_ the mind-voice of the king commands, reaching out to his loyal followers across ocean and sky. The king is calling him home, and many sights and many memories not his own pour into the awareness of the many-winged dragon so it is like his eyes saw them.

 _ **Horror**_ tears at him, and _**fear**_ like being hunted, and _**wrath**_ fills him with fire and poison at a violation so great no scream could be loud enough.

He sees so many ships that the water is hidden beneath their bodies, and smells the stink of human metals and furs and rage and fear. Pain bites into his flank where there is no wound. He senses like a smell an unfamiliar mind crowding up against his, like the reeking breath of a predator that has fed on things long dead, stinking and rotting and slimy.

And only as he folds his wings back and leaps, indifferent to the way the ship rocks beneath him as he takes off into the sky, does he realize that on the edges of the memory not his own there are black scales, the sight a forgotten thing, unimportant next to the knowledge of a terrible threat coming for them all, but familiar.

Cloudjumper bellows out a rare roar, all his fears bursting to bright life.

It does not matter to him that the ship is moving now to follow him at the command of its humans. He cares only to fly as quickly as all his wings can take him, summoned back to the nest to defend his home and his flock – and his _family_.

Everything he has left to treasure is in danger, and Cloudjumper-Leaps-Over-Clouds cannot bear to lose _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ the way he lost their mother.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	17. Chapter 17

_**Stormfall,**_ **Part Seventeen**

Flight is a blow stronger than any swiping paw, a scream of joy louder even than the Alpha of voices, brightness more blinding than sun or flames.

The howl from far below at their tail is a taste as fierce and rich as something sweet and stolen that is the reward for a quick and clever pounce after much hunting, or the rush of shock and fear and panic beating in the pulse of something caught in quick paws so it is as if all of him thrums with the exhilaration of the chase. They drown out that roar with their own cries and leave it behind. Toothless throws himself into a spin and furls his wings in close so their flight is like a leap, with no ground to spring from but only the air. For a flicker less than even a heartbeat racing from much excitement, the sides of the tunnel to the sky are close enough to touch, and Hiccup sets his back paws against his dragon-partner's ribs and pins himself low to Toothless' shoulders, clinging tight.

From memories as clear as scars he knows that he cannot trust the flying-with entirely, not now, thrown across his heart-beloved's shoulders and tied in haste. The way it lies against Toothless' scales is wrong, loose where it should not be and pinching where it should flow smooth, tangled and knotted between Toothless' foreleg and his chest so that it would grind against his side in soft places if he tried to run.

There is no running now, only flight, but Hiccup dares not reach for one of the straps he would tangle his paws into and have no fear of falling then, because he knows from the way the rest of it moves that there is no grip in it.

Instead he makes himself as flat and smooth against black scales as he can so that the air will not slap at him with its tail and slow them in their spinning. He narrows his eyes against it and the true brightness of sun behind clouds when all was only the pretending of shimmering tame fires, before.

But chirruping laughter flows between them in breathing and small touches, and triumph spreads from Toothless' shoulders with his wings, triumph at the rage and frustration of the Knotted Man who has lost his prey. They have stolen themselves back from cages, and the forgotten flock as well, and the _pfikingr_ the Knotted Man had wanted to hurt!

Even half-blinded as they are by the fresh light of the open sky – the claws of it melt and fade quickly, and flying is better and is all that matters – still Toothless veers, sensing the presence of other flyers around him and dodging so that they do not strike each other and fall from the sky. But as soon as he does, he must pull away again, folding his wings back to stop short for only a moment and furling them so that they fall together, a tumble that at once becomes soaring again as he snaps out his wings and brings their flight under control.

They do not fly flat sprawled out against the air or steady, but in short leaps and quick spins, fluttering and banking and bouncing through the sky like a pebble flicked by a swift paw to strike from many stones. But upwards, always, climbing higher and higher towards the clouds!

Hiccup works as they fly, trusting Toothless to guard them and keep them flying even as from the sides of his eyes he sees bright flashes of many scales and patterns splashed across wide wings like fallen colors when many dragons have trodden through them and spread them all over the stones. With all his paws he tugs on the many straps of the flying-with, shifting it so it untwists from where it was twisted and moves back to where it should be from where it should not, so that the cord drawn a bit wrong across Toothless' throat that would choke him if pulled instead lies flat across.

He does not fear losing his balance and falling. They have flown without the security of the binding straps linking flying-with to scale-skins before; they have flown very wild and crazy without any of it, as a try-and-see or just to play.

It is a good game in better days to fly without any of it, so high up in the sky that the ocean below is a distant imagined thing. The game is for Hiccup to hold on as long as he can and for Toothless to try to _make_ him fall with quick stops and flying upside-down and spinning spinning spinning until the sea and sky spin too even when they fly level again.

Falling is nothing, no danger – Hiccup can glide on his own, and fly a bit in good winds, and Toothless would never let him fall _all_ the way down although sometimes they fall together a very long way until they can taste the salt from the waves and see the foam on the teeth of the hungry ocean.

So he knows that _this_ bone in Toothless' shoulders is not buried deep and can be a good grip, and that scraping the skin of his bare paws dry will help them to hold better after a low cloud dissolves to mist and dew around them, and that he can brace one back paw against Toothless' small back fins and reach from there. He knows to keep his eyes on the work his paws are doing and the scales beneath his nose, not the ocean further below or the dragons all around. He puts the many ships into the places where he cannot see.

And Toothless knows it with him, sensing where he is and where his weight is placed and when Hiccup is not clinging tightly enough for them to twist sharply without them being separated. In other days that would be only a quick turn and a snatch with claws turned out not to tear or a dive so that falling becomes landing. But now there is danger close behind them and enemies all around them. Toothless bristles, growling and shuddering, and fire-heat flickers in his chest beneath Hiccup's touch, and the little dragon knows that they are surrounded more from Toothless' signals than his own senses. After the long darkness of being torn apart for so long, they cannot bear to be apart even for a brief flight.

Never again. They will not be two bleeding and cold and lost in the darkness ever again. Never, never, never.

Hiccup pulls one last strap tight and wraps his back paws into the tension that sings through all of it, now, lying against Toothless' scales in patterns so familiar even Toothless could draw it with a stick in his jaws. Even as he raises his eyes to see the skies around them for himself, the little dragon laughs a little at the thought, jaw dropping open as he imagines Toothless curled all around to put lines of ashes on his bright-black scales.

The laugh becomes a snarl as Hiccup bares his teeth. There is a flock all around them as thick and as many as even their own flock-family, a swarm like bees, so many that it would be impossible to know all of them.

Their eyes flash and their teeth snarl answer, and metal gleams from their sides. There is eagerness in their lines; their bodies signal alertness and readiness to fight.

In the distance he catches a sight of something _not_ a dragon, and knows it for the familiar bright-sunlight fur of the _pfikingr_ she _Uh strrrTT_. Elsewhere there are other _pfikingr_ that Hiccup knows to see less well, the ones that are her flock, but almost at once he forgets to look for them as he looks further, searching for the horizon through the clouds wrapped over them all like a covering wing.

 _Horror shock fear horror no no no fear,_ he cries, whimpering and recoiling, and Toothless shudders, glancing back quickly and then away, back to flying, as he whistles a question.

 _Look!_ Hiccup yowls, brushing one paw against Toothless' skull in a long arc to say that Toothless should look all around.

They know these skies. He knows the way the light reflects off the water even through the clouds. He knows that the small ripples it glances off are because there are stones close beneath the water there, that sometimes the tide sinks away and leaves them shallow enough even to land on and rest or fish from even though there is deepest water all around. He recognizes a hungry eddy that pulls ice towards it to spin and smash all together until it melts together into shapelessness with no edges, until another piece is caught and falls in to smash sharp edges from its sides. The scent of the air from a current like a river through the sky is familiar – it is not strong enough for anything but scents to ride on it, but it brings traces to the noses of the flock from passing ships sometimes.

He knows where they are.

They are almost home!

But they are closer than they were when the Knotted Man defeated them in battle and they lost the sky. There was no sky and no clear air and no horizon in the caves of the ship, and while Hiccup had understood that the ship had been moving from its lurching swimming, he had not known what trail it had set its nose to following.

Now he does, and his ready imagination shows him an idea to pounce on, lying still and in the sun with its belly turned upwards, an easy catch.

This flock with its fierceness and its fighting and its metal and its cruelty and its anger and its _Alpha_ , the Alpha of the voices and the terrible Knotted Man that serves it, are coming for _them!_ It is coming to their nest to raid!

The softest of moans sneaks past the taste of fear in his throat, and Hiccup spits it away and instead shrieks an alarm-call, a _danger_ cry, not loud and screaming to call friends and family and flock-mates to him, but quiet for Toothless to hear and recognize.

He knows when Toothless understands it too, as Toothless falters in the air. His shoulders twitch and his ear-flaps spring to attention, then back against his head angry and ready to fight. _Ready_ , Toothless says with his body, gathering himself to fly as fast as possible.

Hiccup's answer is in his paws wrapped in the flying-with and the deep breaths that touch his scales to the back of Toothless' neck; he is saying _ready_ in reply.

Quick as fire catching and springing to life, they fly, racing to disappear into the heavy clouds above.

Before the clouds close around them, Hiccup glances over his shoulder to see many dragons turn to follow them, all their signals moving to _attention_ and _hunting_. He snarls back at them silently – in the sky _no one_ is faster than _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ , and they can outfly any dragon, especially ones carrying metal on their shoulders!

He is tired of being hunted – they will not turn and fight, only fly clever and quick and sneaky. The heavy clouds are blinding as they dive into them, turning all the world grey and wet and smelling only of rain.

When they break through to the clear sky above to see the sun for a moment, the clouds below look thick enough to stand on, as if they could land on them and curl up. But clouds are tricky. They do not stay put like stolen soft fur things; they are cold things of water and air, and sidle away from dragons that fly to them full of fires inside. They surround but do not touch, like fog that makes the world go away.

It is hard to see in clouds, and they know they are pursued. Clouds are a good hiding place, but they cannot stay still and hope that the others will go away. They do not want to cross before their hunters and be seen, and Toothless' trick for seeing in caves where there is no light does not work as well in clouds just as it does not work well in water.

Instead they fly as quickly as they can just above the clouds, skimming through the reaching wisps of them almost close enough to touch if clouds would stay still to be snatched and caught, watching always for hunters. From the familiar cross-winds and the scents they bring and the way they flow, they know where they are even without seeing the ocean and the ice below.

The sky around their nest has been their playground and their territory since they were old enough to fly together. They have flown with others to hunt and fish, and they have flown in small flocks just for the fun of it, chasing each other's shadows and racing to catch the best winds. They have flown in darkness when there is no moon, only the stars and the cold air so clear that ocean and sky seem no different, and soaring upside-down is like falling up.

This is their sky, and they know it as well as they know the stones of the nest.

The first dragon they see of the ones pursuing them is far behind them, breaking out of the clouds and shaking itself as if to dry its scales from the wet of the cloud, so its cry of discovery is faint. Still, Toothless drops down into the clouds as soon as he hears it, knowing that they have been seen.

In other battles they might turn and fight, knowing that their speed and maneuverability serve them well in fights in midair, where the weight of a striking shoulder matters less than sharp claws and tumbling and being where angry fires are not.

But the dragons chasing them now are not a small flock of wanderers who have trespassed on their territory to eat their fish and put their stranger-scent all over their perches in the sun and out of the wind. If they were, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ would turn and fly back and stalk them instead, pouncing at them unexpectedly and screaming like many dragons, disappearing in the clouds and slipping away sneakily.

They can surround dragons all by themselves, if they are quick enough, because Hiccup can imitate the sounds of many flock-mates, roaring deep or shrieking bright and scraping, and because that is a good game, and useful in their storytelling to tell what shape of dragon they mean, Toothless has learned to do so too. They can fly diving and dancing and hiding in fog and clouds so that the trespassers are confused and do not know where their enemies are.

But there is no time for such games.

The clouds melt away before them but Toothless does not like it. He feels faster in bright and open air, so soon he breaks free of the clouds and puts all his strength into speed, trusting his wings to get them home before their enemies catch them rather than hoping the clouds will hide them.

Behind them there is still the roaring of hunting ones, but they are slower and far away, and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ do not look back.

The touch of the sky washing over them washes away the fear and despair of being trapped in the ship under the claws of their enemies, and the bright sun burns it from them. It feels like the weight of a dead prey-thing lifted from their backs, like they have been breathing much smoke from angry fires in a small close cave and now there is new air. In the light of the sun with the clouds below them everything is bright and sharp and clear, where before the edges of things had been blurred with tiredness and hostile darkness and the despair of hearts broken and torn away.

They cannot hear any more voices now, not with the roar of the wind tearing through them and ruffling their scales and Hiccup's fur instead.

Instead they listen for the sounds their nest makes always, familiar and reassuring. The voice of the nest is not like the voice of the Alpha of fierce ones. It is many voices all together, arguing and disagreeing but not fighting to hurt, or screaming to each other to make an excellent noise so that everyone listening will know how happy those dragons are, even if they did not want to listen, even if they are trying to sleep. It is the higher and thinner chattering of hatchlings playing and exploring and getting into trouble, and the shrieks of triumphant hunters and the yowls of those who are hungry and begging the hunters to share.

It is the sound of chasing games and stealing games and pretending games and hiding games and games that are all of those games at once. It is nesting mothers snarling all dragons away from their eggs kept safe, and the sound of stretching out in the sun as bones click deep inside like bubbles popping.

Soon – too soon, their enemies are too close, closer than _any_ enemy that _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ can remember has ever come to their safe place – they see the island that is their home, wrapped in the ice of their king. The ice is like the shell of an egg, keeping the caves and perches and hiding places and sunning places safe, but now the bursts and the teeth of the ice they have played on and flown to and jumped from all their lives suddenly look like defensive horns lowered and teeth bared and claws splayed.

It is not new ice – it is the same ice they have always known, although sometimes ice breaks or shifts or melts, and then their king, the king of ice, makes more ice be with his breath.

But it looks different to them, now.

They are glad of it. They want to hide behind its defenses and never come out again, and Toothless races for the nest even as a tug deep inside him tells him that he cannot keep going at this speed for long, that his wings will cramp and he will have to rest before they fall. It does not matter – they are almost home!

The king will protect them! He will know what to do!

There are many tunnels into the nest, hidden a bit behind crags of stone and bursts of ice and long shadows that stay even in the longest and brightest days, most of different entrances into the intricate warren of caves that fill the ice-bound mountain island. Some are blind caves, perches to sit and sun or to go and sulk in a cave far away from others when some quarrel gets too bitter or a dragon has lost too many arguments and been pushed aside too often and wants instead to be alone.

For the first time, Hiccup imagines now that they could be tricks for enemies, too, that those tunnels go in but go nowhere but to blank stone, and that the invaders at their tail will not know which are ways into the nest and which are only caves all by themselves.

But he can feel from Toothless' movements that they are not slowing down to land neatly in the mouth of one of those tunnels and walk or leap into places of stone, or to fly in through caves where dragons can do that. The two of them can even fly in through tunnels that most dragons cannot, they know through try-and-see flights that have sometimes ended with them bruised and stunned and Toothless' wings scraped raw and Hiccup's head ringing with some crash or another.

They do not have the patience to even do that, today.

When Toothless dives from the sky towards the nest he dives straight down, setting his path towards the glimpses of green and clear water and sparks of color among the teeth of ice. There are dragons around them again as they tumble, Hiccup sees, but further away and safer, and even as they dart past too quick to stop he recognizes some of them, hears in passing their cries of surprise or welcome or amusement or irritation with the dragon-pair who are sometimes too quick to make trouble to make a quiet day more busy, who fly against the flock on wild ideas and do _different_ things.

There are dragons in the nest who do not like them, but the nest is so big and there are so many dragons here that it does not matter; it is better to walk away from fights that draw blood and do not stop.

There is space enough in the nest for dragons to avoid each other, although less so now, with the dragons who once belonged to another Alpha who have now joined their flock. Hiccup is vaguely aware that there are more arguments in the nest now, and that the king has reached out more often to judge some quarrel or another.

None of that matters to him now. Thoughts of the squabbling that is such a part of the doings of the flock are stepped on and buried in the mud by thoughts of the very great danger that snaps close at their tail.

At the heart of the rich and colorful meadow that is itself the heart of the nest, there is a great ocean lake. Hiccup shudders to see that the waters are not still and calm and bright as they should be, moving only with the splashes of dragons playing and fishing in the water and the breathing of the great king.

Instead there are many waves as the king of the nest paces and shifts, tusks scraping against stones as his head swings as if searching for something lost, and his tail and his paws churn the clear water muddy and dark with clouds. The mist that is the breath of ice hisses from him like the first plumes of smoke that threaten but do not yet flame _battle_. Green plants that hang from stones new and soft in summer shrink and go cold-broken as mist settles on them. The stones around him tremble at his passing, and those dragons out in the light huddle _uncertainty_ and stare from the sides of their eyes.

It is confusing and terrifying to see. Their king is their safety, their great protector, their peace – it is incomprehensible to see him growling and restless.

At once as _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ descend his eyes turn towards them, bright and blue like the deepest ice, but there is an expression in them Hiccup does not recognize. They fix on the dragon-pair and his presence strikes them strongly enough that even in the air they stagger to have all of the great king's attention focused on them so sharply.

Their landing is not graceful and tidy; it is a stumble and a fall as the burning tangle in Toothless' side pulls tight and his wing folds by itself. It is a short drop to the stones at the edge of the king's lake, and they land heavily, but still together.

Hiccup can feel the demand already pressing into his mind, but he believes the great king will understand if his first thought is for Toothless. Quickly, he lowers his face to the back of Toothless' skull and nudges their heads together, asking _good you brave yes good us good hurting you hurting sorry bad? bad? worry worry hurting us hurting gratitude concern_.

Toothless pants for breath, but hums _reassurance_ back to him, so the little dragon flicks at the clasps binding him to the flying-with and untangles his paws before slipping from his partner's shoulders and to the ground.

They bow _Majesty_ side by side, showing their submission to the great king with their movements and averting their eyes – there is no challenge to him here. They have lived all their lives under his rule and they know they are loved; they are his unconditionally.

 _ **Worry**_ , their king tells them, the feeling of it rumbling through them so that they feel it with him, overwhelmed and washed away by the strength of it, enough to bury them so deep in the avalanche of it that they could never dig their way out again, and not even all the flock could move enough of the stones to find them crushed beneath it. But they are of the king's flock and protected, and the king does not allow it to crush them.

 _Fear_ , Hiccup cries back as Toothless still struggles to breathe and flinches at the coals inside him where they should not be. _Danger_ , he cries, and _alarm!_

It is not like before, when they asked for help for a flock not their own. They are not asking for others. It is the _why_ of an Alpha dragon, a king, to protect his subjects, and with such a threat approaching they have no doubt that the king will act. He must do. It is the way of things.

 _ **Show**_ , the Alpha commands them, and only now do the two of them look up from their submissive crouches and meet the eyes of their king.

At once Hiccup feels as if the stone beneath his paws is shifting, as if he is falling, in the grip of a power he does not understand. He is a small dragon, and he is used to being smaller than his friends and his flock-mates, but beneath the eyes of the king he is smallest of all, helpless and defenseless.

His king can see through him to the truth of things, see thoughts he has never spoken and memories he has forgotten. He believes that the king can see even the secret, shared heart of himself, whatever form it takes inside him where the two of them, black dragon and once-human boy, merge and become the same, the place where there is no difference and no distance between them.

But he is not afraid. His trust in the king is absolute; to the boy raised as a dragon the Alpha is all-powerful, wise beyond his understanding. The Alpha is their protector, and he does not doubt that he is safe under that bottomless gaze.

So he does not resist as the king looks into both of them and sees as they have seen, even when it hurts to remember. He whimpers at the memory of metal surrounding him and the gaping feeling of frozen emptiness without Toothless by his side, or at having the eyes of humans turned to him and believing him one of them, or the eyes of dragons seeing the same, or the grief and despair of Toothless being gone away. But the only ones to hear his cries are the two he trusts most in the world – the king who has known his heart since he was very small, and Toothless warm beside him, who is his heart.

It is safe to remember, here. Here they are loved and welcomed and known; every paw-step of the island refuge is familiar. More times than they can remember together, they have limped home yowling and bruised and slinking ashamed and hurting, to curl up in their own home-nest and sleep and lick their wounds. In the shelter of the nest with their family around they can stand away and decide after a time that it was not so great a defeat after all, that whatever quarrel they lost or trick they could not get away with does not matter so much.

No mockery tinges the eyes of the king as he learns of their mistakes and their hurting, that they lost each other to their arrogance when they fought an enemy too strong for them, and that they ran and left others to the trap that they escaped.

 _ **Compassion**_ , the king breathes to them, as they remember all that has been set against them.

From them the king learns of the endless flock of fierce ones and their metal skins. He sees their memories of the Knotted Man who is an Alpha of humans but commands dragons as if he were a dragon, who foams at the mind like a staggering wolf and hates so fiercely that there seems to be nothing else in him. They show him the many ships all of metal with their weapons ready to fight and great traps ready to catch and chew and hold, and they remember the _wrongness_ of all of it.

They remember the Alpha of the voices.

As they do, they hear their king begin to snarl, so deep that the rocks beneath their paws hum with it, and the little dragon-pair tremble with them, unable to escape the gaze still fixed on them.

 _ **Rival**_ , he recognizes, and _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ reel.

The king holds them tightly with his eyes and turns over their memories of the Alpha of voices like a nose hunting through a great pile of fish, searching for the best one to eat first and savoring the hungry-making scent of them.

They do not need to ask for the king's help. They can sense his anger.

 _ **Mine!**_ he growls. He will not tolerate the other one so close to his nest and his flock, his home and his beloved subjects. He will not let them be stolen from him.

They will fight, first. _He_ will fight. His little wanderers do not have to fight the trespasser alone.

When he releases them, Toothless' feet slide out from under him and he collapses to the stone. Hiccup does not hesitate to turn to him and curl up beside his beloved-companion as close as he can get, although he is careful not to turn his back to the king.

 _Sympathy_ , he hums, hiding his face against Toothless' scales and setting a paw against his side for the comfort of it. He wonders what Toothless remembered, under the eyes of the king, but while they have no secrets between them he does not want to speak of it either.

In the ocean lake, the king raises his head and slowly rises to his back paws, rearing to lift his tusks into the air and roar.

It is not a roar aloud – it is a roar in the mind, reaching out and calling and commanding.

 _ **Danger**_ , the king sends, reaching out.

It is not a danger to one of them, or a quarrel between flocks, or even like traps that strike without warning.

Hiccup has no real concept of war. Dragons fight. Sometimes many dragons fight. Sometimes small and close flocks set against each other, or hunters go out to chase away intruders traveling through their territory.

The battle that Valka's children have never stopped fighting, hunting dragon-traps, is no more a war than their battle to keep themselves fed and safe and warm. That is the way things are; their trap-breaking is the _why_ of them just as wandering is. It is _survival_.

They have been raiders, before. He and Toothless and many of the flock and the king went from here to fight the _sickbadwrongthing_ , the Alpha that was an eater of dragons, because she was dangerous and _wrong_ inside, and they hunted her down in her lair.

But he does not understand why the Knotted Man and the Alpha of voices should have come here. He does not understand what they did to make them so angry.

 _ **Return**_ , he calls. _**Protect**_.

There is a danger to all the flock and the nest that is their home, and Hiccup can feel the summons going out, calling those away hunting and flying to come home and fight alongside their flock-mates. It catches him like an eddy in the water, a riptide snatching at his paws and pulling them out from under him so that he stumbles and falls. But instead of breathing only stinging-cold salt water he drowns in the waves of tangled-together _fear-excitement-anticipation-dread-hunger-trembling-anger_ humming across the flock.

Dragons fold their wings and drop from the sky towards the meadow beneath the eyes of the king, answering his call. They settle on every stone and crag and ledge that will support them, hanging from outcroppings of rock or hovering in midair, staring _curiosity_ even when there is nowhere left to land. From the caves deep within the stone, bright eyes emerge from the darkness, following the summons and listening, ready. In a moment black dragon and dragon-feral are surrounded by their flock-cousins, scales scraping against their sides as the others who share this sanctuary crouch and bow _Majesty_ in their turns.

Every one of them flinches when close on the tail of the king's command, a wave of _**horror**_ and _**fear**_ and memory goes out, showing the dragons of the king's flock some of what _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ have seen and learned so that all understand what the enemy is.

Many voices scream in outrage all around them, echoing off the stones and singing out to the sky. All around shoulders spread as dragons make themselves big ready to fight. Claws dig into the lichen and the stone, scratching new scars into rocks that bear many such scars already, old and worn with the treading of many paws. Flames burst out, but there is little space to blast and burn, and yelps from those too close to the heat of it die away at once as the king sends _**Enough**_.

There is no time to fight each other, not with strangers and enemies flying to attack.

 _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ know best of all what is coming for them, racing close in their wake, but they too are caught in the excitement rippling through their cousins. The breathing of all of them catches and comes quick and shallow, panting eager and hungry; a growl that starts in one dragon all alone jumps through the flock from flank to flank until all are rumbling deep and fierce.

Surrounded and protected and part of a flock again, swept along with the call to battle, it is easy for Hiccup and Toothless to forget how frightened they were.

Quickly, the flock grows too impatient to growl, and must instead turn all their snarls into howls of challenge, leaping towards the sky. They race away to catch and stop the rival flock before they can come even this far, to hunt them down and send them away howling, out of the skies that are theirs. By then the dragon-pair too are bright-eyed and jittery, eager to pounce.

With their family all around them, as their Alpha commands _**Fly!**_ it seems impossible that anything could stand against them.

* * *

They remember otherwise, soon.

The sky beyond the protection of ice, bristling all around the warmth at the heart of the nest, is filled with dragons, swarming with them like flurries of snow, except snow does not have so many colors, and it does not flame. And yet the ships stalking and prowling to the shore below are like traps hidden beneath those snowfalls, hidden a bit but dangerous still, and more so because they cannot be seen.

Even through the ice _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ could hear the strangers hissing and snarling, roaring challenges and threats, angry and defensive, and now with no barrier between them their cries are clearer, the meaning in their sounds and signals understandable. They are eager to fight, and there is a darkness and a menace in them that chills the dragon-pair more than all the ice, more than dark water. They want this place for theirs; there are many of them and they are not afraid of the dragon-flock that has lived here always.

They will kill, if they can, and already there is blood on snow and shapes that do not move with the water washing over them where the ocean laps at the shore.

Grey Eyes who flies beside them does not snarl threats back – she folds her wings and dives, shrieking _you you enemy you hate bad you threat you!_

Other strangers at once leap at Grey Eyes in defense of their comrade, surrounding her, and Temper lands like thunder striking to protect his flock-mate – they perch together sometimes, Hiccup remembers, him jeering at those who wander past and her laughing at his screeches and insults. Both of them have mates of their own, but they are friends. Temper bowls over the nearest dragon with his weight and tears into its shoulder so it cannot fight back with those claws. But it bites, coiling its snake-neck around and fighting back, and soon they are tumbling and flaming, screaming and brawling in the snow that turns to steam and fog all around them as mud and sand and stones fly.

Fire blasts by them close enough to scorch as Toothless twists away, Hiccup crouched close to his shoulders and watching all around them. _Up!_ Hiccup signals at once, drawing his bare paws across Toothless' shoulders.

It is not fire that whistles past them in pursuit, but a stone that flies, and as it falls away Hiccup screams _hatred_ at it – stones should not fly!

But the waters all around their nest are full of ships, now, slinking in close to the shore to pull themselves onto the rough icy stone and snow-mixed sand. Many are already perched there, dark shapes against white-gray ground like cold shadows, trespassing. Stones and sharp arrows snap out from them as dragons dive flaming and screaming to drive them away, but ships cannot be scared, and their displays only bring those dragons in close enough to be bitten by sharp things.

From the side of his eyes Hiccup sees arrows bite into a friend of theirs. Pounce Teacher is a big dragon, and the arrows strike only his shoulder and paw, but he does not turn on the humans below in rage and scream at them for such small bites. Instead his wings tangle around themselves and Pounce Teacher tumbles and falls, crashing to the earth in a great spray of snow and sand, and he thrashes there and does not try to escape as humans run to him and throw a thick net over him and pin the net to the ground.

He does not get up again.

Tangle-nets hold others of their flock, too – near another ship there are already so many dragons caught in one that their heads and tails and paws are all mixed up, so it is as if one has the paws of another and the sides of one much smaller.

If they cry out, Hiccup cannot hear them over the howling and screaming of the battle in the air, the battle between dragons all around.

Toothless blasts flames of his own at an enemy with his scales all over metal, trying to drive the bigger dragon away from the cousin of theirs she is pursuing, and turns to flee when she turns on the black dragon instead. Toothless stops short and twists away, diving sharply and weaving between enemies and friends alike, following Hiccup's signals as the smaller dragon snatches glances at eyes turned towards them and fangs bared. They dodge under a tail coiling around to strike, hearing it hiss over them like an angry snake. When scales crack against scales, it is not them it has struck – it is the nose of the one chasing them too close to veer away as quick as the dragon-pair can fly, and she recoils, floundering in the air.

They do not stop to laugh. There is no laughter in this battle, not even when they can turn their enemies against each other, and that good trick does not work against the fierce ones! They do not quarrel among themselves – even the she with the bruised nose does not yowl in rage at the one who struck her. Instead she catches herself before she falls far and dives around, resuming her pursuit.

Spinning away, Hiccup and Toothless race into the thick of the battlefield, hoping that she will not be able to see where they go there.

It takes all their skill to keep from being knocked from the sky. Dragons fight and grapple and tear at each other close enough to touch, so close that their wings foul each other, and battling knots of dragons fall away from the teeming cluster of smaller battles all churning together to make a nightmare of claws and fangs and blood-tinged breaths and scorched scales. Even the smoke from fires cannot escape them all, and the air darkens with smoke as much as with dragon-shadows.

At once they realize that the dragon chasing them was less dangerous than the chaos tearing itself apart, drifting out over the ocean and the ships below. There seem to be more and more and more of them, never-ending ships, although there are fires on some of the ships now, burning through. But they are caught in that eddy of dragons now, and the edges of that battle surge out and wash over them, sucking them in and keeping them.

When a stranger with metal all across its nose and jaw lowers his head to bite, striking at Toothless from behind, Hiccup lashes out at him, wishing again and again for his claws. If he had them, this dragon would have recoiled and retreated torn and bleeding in his wide-gaping jaw. Still, his small soft-claws surprise the dragon into pulling away.

The black dragon tumbles over, curling himself into a ball and folding his wings in, all his weight colliding with one of the dragons ganging up on another of their friends. Scratched Stones is holding off most of them, but cannot escape, and they will not let her retreat. Toothless' weight knocks aside the biggest of them so that she can coil away, and her foe tries to regain his balance, squawking and fluttering. Instead he falls with a shriek as Fetch strikes home on his shoulder, claws scoring until he tears free and flees for the edge of the battlefield, howling.

As he reaches clearer air, though, Hiccup sees him go rigid and still as if he has forgotten to do more than glide, and he turns back and returns to the battle despite his wounds.

His eyes, Hiccup notices, are small like staring into the sun, but there is no sun in the sky today. It is hiding from the flames of warring dragons.

Their original pursuer long forgotten, Hiccup and Toothless break away, the black dragon clawing past one who tries to block their way. But Toothless can go very fast even without a long way to go faster and faster in, and they are the ones who come off better from that collision. The one blocking their way spirals towards the ground, tipping and veering as he struggles to land.

The sky above and around the nest is no longer their familiar playground. It is crowded with brawling dragons, ringing with shrieks of pain and anger and the hunting-howls of fierce ones that leap to the attack with laughter and an open-jawed dragon grin. The ice below them is shattered and fouled with ashes and torn scales, and all the currents and thermals and familiar paths through the sky have been blasted all to pieces and chased away.

A patch of darkness on the shore catches Hiccup's attention as it moves, steady and confident, and when he turns to look as Toothless lands briefly on a sharp spur of ice, the rage that burns through him is so great he imagines his eyes lighting and glowing with it, imagines poison-venom dripping from fangs sharper than his own. The black dragon follows his gaze, and his heart-beloved companion snarls with him.

The Knotted Man walks across their home.

His stick for striking with digs into the sand, stabbing down as if to put wounds into even the earth, and even from their perch Hiccup recognizes the signals of a terrible joy in him as he looks out over a snapping trap that has caught Torn Wing and tangled her into a metal net, and a cluster of enemies metal all over who have cornered Hides in Shadows between them as he flutters between them trying to escape. His humans carry heavy stones and send them flying as their Alpha watches with his teeth bared like a hunter triumphant and diving to the kill, and he raises his stick to signal humans to send arrows spraying into dragons tangled together brawling and tearing at each other, fighting to drive each other down to the ground.

Those arrows ring from the metal of the Knotted Man's dragons, but bring those who have been flock-family and kin to Hiccup and Toothless crashing down to reel and stagger, easy prey.

He walks untouched. When Rabbit Leaps rises to his paws from a panting, crouching rest in the sand and bristles and snarls all over to send the Knotted Man fleeing, at once one of the man's servants races to his defense.

It is _sick_ inside to have the monstrous Knotted Man here, laughing as their friends hurt and wearing still the death of one _like them_ over his shoulders.

As they watch, trembling with anger that is fear as well, lessons sharply learned warning them away from challenging him again, he looks up towards the defenses of ice. They have been scorched and struck and there are deep scars and smoke-blackened pits dug in, but they are solid still, protecting the little ones and the safe places deep within like the ribs of a chest.

But the Knotted Man raises his striking-stick, and waves it, around and around, and roars deep and confident and sure.

Everywhere, the battle slows. The warrior-strangers look to their Alpha, waiting for his command, and those of the nest startle and stare, wondering what new strange kind of dragon this is, to roar so.

He roars, and brings the striking-stick slamming down.

And the earth _shudders_.

The ground trembles, and the ocean heaves, ships bucking as they struggle to keep their grip on the shore, and all around dragons startle away into flight from the uncertain ground, for a few wingbeats not fighting, every one of them looking only to herself.

Toothless clings to the ice, and his beloved one to the black dragon's shoulders, and they stare in disbelief and confusion as an island rises from the waves, and becomes a mountain, and then raises its head to show a face half-familiar and entirely impossible.

Its scales are grey and tipped with red like bloody claws, and scars score through it and across tusks as long and sharp as those of their own king, and _chains_ hang from those tusks. Water streams from its back as it spreads its wings wide and rears to its back paws, and it does not seem to care that there are holes torn through those wings and healed open.

The monster from out of the sea slams its paws down on the shores of their home, shambling onto the land with the steady tread of something that does not care what it finds underfoot, because every step crushes ice and rock to sand unnoticed. Only the quick retreating of the dragons of the nest, squealing and shrieking in confusion and fear, keeps them safe from those careless paws.

The Alpha of voices is a king like their own!

It is within their understanding, but as Hiccup and Toothless stare at the dark king, the great one lowers his head again and turns to look down at the Knotted Man.

When the Knotted Man raises his striking-stick and gestures, shouting, and in response the dark king looks to the wall of ice and roars a bellowing, deafening _**challenge**_ that echoes in the air and in the mind – _that_ is a thing beyond comprehension.

It cannot be that the Knotted Man is commanding a king of dragons. It is impossible. It is a thing so wrong it cannot even be reeled away from.

But they cannot stay still and wonder, or turn away and ignore, because at once a matching roar, this one familiar and welcome and wound all about with memories of _belonging_ and _protection_ and _love_ and the nestled-together warmth of _home_ , rings out in answer.

 _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ fly with all the small dragons, fleeing from the clash between Alphas as their king smashes through the remains of the ice wall to meet his rival in combat.

The two flocks still battle, swiping at each other in shallow mimicry of the giants below, the dragons of the shattered nest swarming to protect the ways torn open now. Those who cannot hear the voice of the king, and those who were too small or too young or too wounded or too weak to answer his call, are still hidden within the safe refuges of the nest, and they must be protected!

Hiccup and Toothless have seen their king fight before, and it is a strange thing in a battle of strange things to see him fight one like himself, as if his shadow has come to life and turned against him, slamming its tusks into his and pushing to shove him off balance. But the king sets his feet against the mountain at his tail and lowers his head, twisting to tear free and lunge for his rival's broad chest. His tusks stab out and his ice blasts across the cold sand beneath the dark one's paws to make him lose his footing and slip.

As heavy as an avalanche, the dark one steps away and charges, heavy steps devouring the space between them at once. They have little space to fight, but they do not race and flit from place to place and leap and scramble as small dragons do. Instead they push at each other with their weight and slam their tusks together, vying to tear into each other's scales.

The earth shakes, but the battle does not stop. Stones and sharp-biting arrows continue to fly, seeking their targets in the air as dragons chase each other, and Grey Eyes and Deep Green and one of those who are still New From Far Away follow _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ as they attack the traps and the weapons that humans have planted on the shore. Smoke and shouting blow in their wake as they race up and down the line of it all, dodging weapons and screams flung at them as they strike.

There are dragons flying among the ships, leaping from one to the other, and neither black dragon nor dragon-rider can tell who those dragons belong to, their king or the dark one. There is burning on the ships now, and one and others have stumbled and are sinking and drowning. Perhaps others have thought too that the ships are their enemy and the nests of their enemy.

It is not good to burn a nest, Hiccup knows, but the ships and their fierce ones and their Alphas have come here to burn theirs! So he is not sorry, even when a blast from the biggest ship where he and his Toothless- _soul-love_ were trapped and alone sends a wave through the air like a splash in water, and all the dragons close to it veer away crying out at the reek of poison-breath that billows out in a toxic fog.

Their king does not fight often, but he fights well, and no blood yet stains his snow-and-ice scales. He does not let the dark one lock him into a tangle that he cannot escape, recoiling away from his rival so that their tusks do not tangle together, where a fight body-to-body can swerve one way or another without warning. It is a matter of luck in such a fight, in small things that slip away and betray, and dangerous. Instead he fights in wide swings and heavy blows of tusks, guarding his flanks with sprays of ice. Sharp darts stab out for soft places, eyes and gaping-wide jaw, forcing the dark one to draw away, stomping his feet angrily.

Beneath the battling kings, as they stomp and brace to push and strike at each other, everything smashes to nothingness and breaks away. Hiccup and Toothless barely recognize their home anymore. Parts of their world they know well and have always accepted as the changeless shape of things have crumbled beneath the feet of giants.

They would not want to fight an Alpha so great and so dangerous, and the dragon-pair are unwilling to have the eyes of the Alpha of voices fall on them in body as those eyes did in their minds when they were trapped and afraid. Hiccup knows that they should trust their king to defend against the dark one, but still, he watches. He keeps them in the side of his eyes even as he and his dragon-partner burn a net-throwing thing to blackened ashes and send humans racing away from a long chain of metal that leaps and catches dragons like a coiling snake.

The dark one stumbles, just a bit, lifting one of his paws and keeping it raised, and the great king shifts with him, pushing him away.

But when Hiccup looks more closely, he sees a small shadow moving beneath the two kings.

The Knotted Man walks among their feet with confidence, and the dark king steps more carefully, risking blows and stabs from the king's tusks so as not to step on the arrogant human striding around underfoot even though a paw treading on him would crush him.

The dragon-feral cannot understand why he would do so. His Alpha – it _cannot_ be that the Knotted Man commands the dark king – cannot fight as readily if the dark one must be wary not to tread on him. What can he be doing? Hiccup puzzles, as Toothless guards them, flitting between battling, tangled-together opponents and flaming at a dragon pursuing a friend of theirs as Floating races past them yowling for help.

When he sees the Knotted Man, concealed in the blind spot below the king's jaw, raise his stick high and draw it back to strike with the claw of it, Hiccup snaps tense and trembling with rage, and Toothless' head comes up with sudden attention.

 _There!_ Hiccup gestures, pointing.

Toothless pours all his strength and speed into flight, and the battle all around them becomes nothing more than many blurs as they race to stop their enemy.

Blasting-fire strikes the Knotted Man before his clawed stick can lash down, and if he only stumbles, protected by that stolen dead dragon-skin, it does not matter –

All of Toothless' weight collides with the Knotted Man's side in a full-body tackle just as their king slams against the dark one, undistracted and sure-footed still.

The blow sends them flying, all of them, and instinct and long practice take over as Hiccup tumbles, feeling the straps of the flying-with tear away and clever ties pull loose with the impact. The world around him scrambles and spins as the shadows of the kings give way to the blinding reflections from shards of ice.

Hiccup knows how to fall, but accustomed to flight as he is, even he can do no more than crash well.

When he shakes snow from his fur and spits sand, pawing at his eyes as if the soft-skin of his bare paws could scrape the dazing and reeling of crashing – his borrowed scales are long since gone – he finds himself alone, separated from Toothless. To be grounded again so abruptly is more of a shock than the cold of shards of ice trying to bite through his scale-skins, and less welcome. The separation hurts like a wound, as if gashes not healed have broken open again, with seawater that _burns_ splashing into them.

Not daring to rise to his back paws yet, knowing reflexively to stay low and hidden away from a fight he is not ready to pounce into, instead he crouches and looks around, trying to understand.

They did not fly too far, and close by are the paws of the kings, but they have stopped thundering against the earth and fighting. Hiccup looks up in horror, hoping that the battle is not over, that his king has not been wounded and defeated.

Far above him, the kings stand set against each other, but the dark king, the Alpha of voices, has fallen back and is looking away, head turning as if searching.

A shout in a human voice close by rings out, and Hiccup startles and scrambles away from it without thought. Landing again, he sees the Knotted Man climbing to his own feet, snatching his striking-stick from where it has fallen and using it for balance like an extra paw, because at the man's feet lies a foreleg all of metal, crushed and flattened and twisted now, and broken away.

Baffled, Hiccup sees that the abominable cloak has fallen away from where it hides the human's side, and there is no foreleg beneath it, only a torn emptiness as if a trap had bitten through the shoulder, and the scars are very old.

The Knotted Man looks up, though, and does not retrieve the broken pretending foreleg. Instead he waves his stick at the dark king, jabbing it at those eyes staring down him, and he shouts again, angry and commanding.

Hiccup does not know the words the Knotted Man is speaking, but he understands the meaning in them. The Knotted Man is ordering the dark king to fight more, and he does not like that the Alpha he commands – it is _wrong_ , but it seems to be so – has stopped his battle to turn and see what has happened.

Beyond the Knotted Man, Hiccup sees Toothless struggling from a snowbank all his own, shaking all of it away and wriggling to stretch out bruises from landing so hard. Torn scraps of the flying-with fall around him, sinking into the snow, broken and forgotten and dead. But the dragon-feral brightens to see that Toothless is not hurt, and chatters _want_ inaudibly, eager to be back on his beloved-companion's shoulders again.

But the Knotted Man stands between them, and almost at once the eyes of strangers lurking beneath their metal skins nearby see the black dragon's movement, and Hiccup wails _distress_ as many of them pounce at him. Toothless is forced to back away, unable to take off through the enemies swiping and spraying burning spittle at him, grounded and cornered and outnumbered.

The sound catches the attention of the Knotted Man, but those eyes turn on Hiccup.

His eyes blaze _hatred_ and his jaw twists _disgust_ , and his voice goes low and dark and furious as he hisses and growls human words. He grips the striking-stick tighter in his only paw, and steps over the broken foreleg, shoulders lowering.

Alone and grounded and feeling very, very small in the shadows of the kings, Hiccup at first refuses to retreat, half-rising from his crouch and standing his ground. He wishes for his claws and he wishes that in all this battle with humans running and retreating he had stolen a blade, certain that _one_ of the humans must have dropped a weapon that would have felt right in his paws. Most of all he wishes for Toothless, that the two of them should face the Knotted Man _together_ as they should be and as they are, and he wishes his own small heart-fires to spring up and blaze out and _burn_.

Sweet-tempered as a matter of course and perceptive by nature, hatred does not come naturally to Hiccup, but he _hates_ the Knotted Man now. He sees nothing in the man to admire or to respect or to like, and Hiccup can understand nothing of the way he is. In his scent and his movements and his eyes there is only madness, and despair, and death.

There is no victory in standing still to be struck down by the clawed stick slashing out, and Hiccup cannot leap at the man and tear into him with claws long since lost. So instead he backs away, hissing and snarling and baring his teeth. He can hear Toothless roaring the same defiance, and although the Knotted Man stands between them, blocking their sight of each other, he takes courage from those sounds. He and Toothless are not retreating, not surrendering – this is the place they will not retreat from.

To crouch and submit to their enemy now would leave nowhere to retreat _to_. All the world is filled with the battle of the kings, the screams and shrieks and cries of dragons, the crunching and cracking of ice, the deep and distantly familiar roars of human voices close by.

That seems most wrong of all. This is a place of dragons, or at most of those beloved to dragons.

Hiccup includes himself as a dragon, of course, and it was right that his mother should have been here, because she was a human _like_ a dragon, and she was one of the flock. She would have defended their home, too.

But he does not like that the Knotted Man is so much larger than he is, standing over him. Lifelong habits compel him to leap and to climb, to ground himself on some stone to pounce from and stare down that cruel, predatory gaze from there.

He turns away only for a blink of eyes, moving with the surefooted confidence of knowing that he _knows_ this place. But almost at once he stumbles, and the quick-striking stick in the paw of the Knotted Man cracks across his back paws, catching one and pulling it out from under him.

In an instant his leap becomes an awkward, helpless tumble into the chaos and rubble that the battle between kings has made of his home, everything different and wrong and none of it as it should be.

When he looks up he finds the Knotted Man standing over him with the claw of the stick pressed against his chest, resting over his heart, and on the other end of it a grin showing blunt teeth, menacing and exultant.

In the satisfaction in those eyes, Hiccup can see that however much he has hated the Knotted Man, there is more hatred in his enemy than he could ever have imagined, enough to drown out all mercy. His eyes look only for fear, and they are poisonous with that hunger.

Every signal in the Knotted Man and everything he understands say _death_ to Hiccup, helpless and pinned and alone, and the panicked, agonized scream that rips through the air as Toothless sees him fall without rising, unable to race to his side.

But he _will not_ submit!

He hisses and snarls and yowls and screams, writhing away from the blade against him and clawing at it, blind and mad with defiance.

The Knotted Man's jowls curl back with disgust, and then a roar makes him look away, eyes going wide and body tensing with shock, because it is a _human_ roar –

The blade whips away from the dragon-feral and up to defend the Knotted Man, but too slow, too slow!

A human shoulder rams into him, knocking him back in a blaze of metal and heavy-striking weapon and horns and red fur.

And the _St-t-t-t-t-kk_ sets his feet in the ground and roars as fiercely as any dragon.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	18. Chapter 18

_**Stormfall,**_ **Part Eighteen**

Drago lashes out with his staff as he reels, cursing himself for letting the mongrel little dragon-creature distract him from the battle still raging, for putting his own desire to dispose of something more trouble than it's worth ahead of the greater cause of the war. And he curses the man whose attack has sent his ribs howling with fresh outrage. A human, a human not part of his army! What is he doing here in this lair of wild dragons?

The blade of the spear strikes nothing, hissing through the air between him and this new enemy, and the warlord whips it back and grounds it in the debris as he struggles to keep his footing. Whoever, whatever this is who _dares_ to strike him, he will not stumble and fall like some child, some cripple, like the whimpering beast-whelp cringing against the earth. Everything spins around him. It may be the world as he staggers or the flurry of dragons as they battle in the sky, or simply his own flesh betraying him, mind and body still ringing from the Night Fury's attack.

He grits his teeth at the pain from ribs cracked and broken and bruised by the Fury's mad strike, and he can feel torn flesh beneath his armor from the wreckage of his metal arm. It may not really be part of him, only a pitiful substitute for the limb that should be there, but he finds himself even more enraged at its destruction than he was at the loss of the real one. It had not seemed real, then, cast adrift in the emptiness beneath his shoulder – such a small void, but one empty enough to devour all of him, it seemed. His mind is clearer this time, and the shock less, and he knows the damage can be repaired.

But the ghost of fire that never leaves him roars in sympathy, or perhaps in fiendish delight at finding a reason to exist, an imaginary limb screaming with the wound that would have been there.

It was finally all going as he'd imagined it! His men line the shore, setting up traps and triggers even while dragons hover overhead screaming and flaming. They ward off the attacks with shield formations and organize short-lived shifts of workers and warriors until reinforcements arrive to defend them, or until those machines hum to life. There's very little dragons can do against human discipline and human machines. Let dragons see two or three of their fellows captured, and they'll turn and flee into the teeth of Drago's own flying army.

And the training for the dragon army has paid off beautifully. They leap into the fight unbidden, the messages their bodies send as clear as any written word or spoken voice to Drago, who knows dragons better than anyone. Some still stagger about with their eyes and their ungainly flailing betraying Monster's hold over them, but most of them are fighting because that's what they know how to do. They've been trained to fight, taught to love everything a battle between dragons can throw at them, and they race to the attack without hesitation.

It's what they're good for, and it's what they know. And he was the one who did that! _He_ was! Drago was the one who gave them a purpose, and discipline, and put some meaning into their shallow animal lives. He made them part of something greater, something powerful, something unstoppable!

The wild ones are putting up a fair resistance, but this proves only that they will be worthy additions to his fighting force.

 _How dare they?_ he snarls silently as his breath catches in his chest, cursing the black dragon close on the heels of his curses for the man shouting something incoherent, with the warlord's name tangled up in it like a curse. His unasked-for guardians are driving the Night Fury away now, keeping it at a distance and flaming at it in turns as it leaps and growls and slashes at them, trying to get past. Whether to get at the warlord, or to its rider, Drago doesn't know and he doesn't care.

He doesn't need the guards that followed him until he walked under the feet of the battling kings to bring down the wild one, but when he sent them away and into the battle, more came to follow. Different ones, like he wouldn't notice, like it wouldn't count if he hadn't told _these_ dragons to go away, so that the only moment he was without an escort was when he moved to attack the bone-white Alpha.

Of course that was when the Fury had struck.

Nothing else on this battlefield will touch him. He knows none of them ever would. They know what he is: they know he is a king, that he commands armies, and that he is beyond any of them. He can say very little in favor of dragons, but at least the beasts know when they are in the presence of a leader.

Drago knows that if he walks with enough confidence, if he _knows_ deep in his bones that he'll kill anything that crosses his path, then even wild, frightened, angry dragons will respect him.

But not everyone has his strength. He has a responsibility to be strong for those people, the ones the dragons will destroy without a human master set over them.

Why won't they just understand that?

Why do _idiots_ like that insolent Viking girl-child and the shouting man now swinging a hammer at him insist on fighting him at every turn? They only make things worse. They want peace? They should give up their stupid rebellions and understand that _he_ is the stronger. They should admit that he is in the right, that they should be afraid of him for the power he wields or grateful for all he's trying to do for them.

Why won't they just be afraid? How can they be so stupid? Why are they making things so difficult?

If people would just be reasonable, he wouldn't have to destroy things to make them listen.

And then he could deal with the dragons instead of having to fight off shortsighted humans who get in the way at every turn.

Dragons can't reason, of course. Dragons understand only the discipline that comes at the end of a stick, or in the shadow of a king dragon like Monster.

Through the ringing in his ears and the silent screaming in his chest, he curses Monster last of all. Out of the corner of his eyes he can see the beast faltering again, head turning slightly as it searches for him. Stupid creature. Monster should pay attention to the battle Drago set him to instead of stopping and looking around and mooing every time something scratches his master.

He has no doubt of _Monster_ 's loyalty, at least, but he refuses to let the creature see him injured. Dragons respect only strength, and Drago has to be stronger all the time. So he won't be injured. He doesn't need help from a dragon.

And he certainly doesn't need to be fussed over by one. The dumb beast probably dispatched the bodyguards to follow him around, too, when any halfway intelligent human could have seen that they need every dragon in the sky fighting the wild flock still pouring out from this treasure trove of a nest.

"Get away from him!" the man attacking him roars, and Drago raises his eyes to see a burly man made bigger by a fur cloak, a boiling temper, a beard the man could hide a forest in, and the horned helmet he wears.

 _Vikings_. Perhaps he has more curses left, if there are Vikings around to bestow them on.

How can there be more Vikings here? Drago wonders resentfully. He can't figure out _why_ there would be more Vikings here. There's nothing here for them. What do they want? Can't they see he's _busy?_

Drago hates Vikings. Arrogant, narrow-minded barbarians, all of them. The little girl who escaped his arena was clever, for a Viking, but she too will learn that a few leagues of ocean and a few mewling dragons won't be enough to protect her from a man who has crossed continents and defeated beasts terrible enough to turn lesser men to stone with fear.

Let her and her hangers-on run screaming back to their island. He was half-tempted to dispatch a pack of hunting dragons after them, but having seen the swarm of dragons battling his army now, he's decided he was right to hold them in reserve. Berk's time will come soon enough, once this island and all its beasts are his.

What a waste it had been, having Monster draw them in and pick them out of the sky a few at a time! Why did he bother hiring trappers like that oily northerner? They should have come straight here long ago. What a force the creatures would have been by now, well-trained.

But the thought of the Viking girl strikes a spark off a memory kept stashed away and brought out in the darkest of nights to chew over for the poison in it, a bitter reminder of the blindness and stupidity of most people that spurs him on the rare occasions when his resolve falters. He offered them freedom, and this man was one of those stupid, savage brutes who laughed.

"I know you," Drago rumbles, getting his bearings again. There's more grey in the man's beard now. More lines on his face, and not all of them scars. But he's still familiar. "Stoick of Berk, who sends small girls to beg me to spare his life."

The Viking chieftain sneers back at him, face reddening with anger. "Drago. You should have stayed in whatever hole you've been hiding in all these years. We still don't want any of your madness."

Drago scoffs at him. "Madness? I told you I could control dragons. Look around you!"

His words are half-buried in the sound of an avalanche as Monster lunges at his foe. His tusks lock under the jaw of the wild king, and the white dragon digs its back feet into a spur of the mountain behind it, rearing up to escape his teeth. Faster than Drago would have expected for a dragon that probably hasn't fought in years, the wild Alpha throws itself to one side, dragging Monster off balance and stomping on the feet of Drago's most faithful follower with its own front paws.

Beyond the battling kings, hundreds of mismatched flying, flaming reptiles tear at each other. Closer by, that troublesome Night Fury writhes and screams as one of the warlord's dragon soldiers pins its tail to the ground and two more pile onto its shoulders. A warrior spirit, that one. Drago forgives it its defiance.

He still wants that beautiful thing alive and in one piece so he can see what it can _really_ do, once it has learned enough manners to not play foolish games. So his dragons do not harm it.

Its cries are answered by a thin and despairing wail, and Drago lowers his eyes to the little mongrel sheltering behind the Viking chieftain, trying to get to its feet. It flinches the moment his gaze falls on it, recoiling with a strangled whimper before visibly gathering its courage and hissing at him. His laughter turns bitter.

"If you look for madness, Stoick, look no further than that thing at your heels."

Ever since the moment he set foot on this island, he has felt that dragon-creature's eyes on him, and again and again, he found himself looking for it and the Fury out of the corner of his own eyes.

There will be no cage for it, this time. He can't imagine how it got out of the first one. It cannot have simply turned to a shadow and walked through the bars. There are no such things as ghosts and spirits. _There is no magic in this damned world,_ he believes firmly _._ But trying to hold on to it has been like snatching for mist, and Drago has no use for such a random factor, or indeed anything he cannot control.

He told himself as he walked the battlefield that he had never quailed at the memory of its eyes, and that of course he was being watched, in the midst of his loyal servants and his enemies as they warred.

Alone and crashed down in the rubble of the battle, the creature was about as terrible as a kicked dog. Its attempts at defiance had been laughable, instead. What did it imagine was going to happen, that it would growl at him and he would go away? Can't it see how outmatched it is?

People like Drago Bludvist, master of dragons, commander of armies – people with dreams – change the world for the better, not animals like this creature.

And when he'd raised his spear to strike it down he had felt the tide of battle changing, known that with their pet dead the wild dragons would lose heart, and thus the battle. He'd had enough of those eyes on him, of seeing a dragon thrashing about in a human body like one of the demons superstitious people believe creep into sleepers and ride them out raving to kill and burn and scream lunacy.

He scowls at it now as the strange little mongrel scuttles away from its protector, leaping from frozen sand to fallen stone and sliding across a fragment of ice to leap into the scuffle between the Night Fury and Drago's soldiers.

A cacophony of shrieks behind his back, and a triumphant roar, turn that scowl into a curse, recognizing the voice of the Night Fury amidst the yowling and screaming of his _useless_ excuses for bodyguards.

"Hiccup isn't mad," Stoick growls, low and furious, and Drago looks back at the Viking chieftain in disgust. The thing has a name? Is he the only one in all the world between here and the pit of creation who can see it for what it is, an abomination?

"He's just different. And he's braver than I am, at that. At least he knows what he is. Some people never figure that out." Stoick spits at him, a dismissive _tch!_ noise. "You've yet to find out what a vile excuse for a human being you are, I see."

Drago's spine prickles, longing to turn and defend against the beast at his back even as he knows his cloak will protect him, as it always has. One of the worst fights of his life, and yet more than worth the scars. But the Night Fury circles back around into his line of sight again, with its rider once more on its shoulders, both of them glaring, growling with a single voice.

There's an eerie similarity about them. The way that they move would make him shudder, were he a lesser person with less control over his own signals. Drago knows how dragons communicate, but even he can't see the signals they must be exchanging for the rider to stay that steady as the dragon paces. Their eyes are the same shade of green, and –

The Night Fury crouches at Stoick's side – out of reach, but clearly siding with the Viking chieftain – and Drago looks from the man to the dragon-rider as they both snarl at him.

When he laughs, it's in earnest, as amused as he is revolted, because it's not only the black dragon the troublesome little mongrel almost looks like.

* * *

Drago's laughter is a jarring, discordant thing. Stoick has heard sweeter sounds from swords discarded and forgotten for years on the floor of the armory, as they jolted against each other and scraped rust from deeply scored cracks.

Hefting his warhammer and shifting his grip on the haft, he wonders how long he can stand to listen to it before he strikes the mad warlord down just to make it stop.

To his right, he can see his son tremble, wide-eyed and pale as he draws away from the sound. Toothless pulls back with him, the Night Fury rearing briefly and pawing at the air before finding his footing again.

Stoick is boiling over with the rush of what a lifetime of training and old habits say is a jolly good fight, a true test of his skill in battle, a welcome exercise of his skills lest they go rusty. The haft of the warhammer has not stopped humming in his hands since his crew all but ran the ship aground in their haste to get at the armored men spread out across the island. With their backs to the ocean, they made ready targets, and while Stoick doesn't approve of attacking men from behind, he has nothing at all against sneaking up on them and startling them into turning around at the sound of his warriors' throats howling a war cry as loud as their lungs could bellow it.

His Vikings are many things. One of those things is _loud_.

The soldiers manning the machines have proved entirely unprepared for screaming Vikings, a number of them breaking and running and making the Viking warriors chase after them, whooping with the exhilaration of battle and entirely undeterred by having to run a little further. That same spirit grips Stoick still, making the heavy hammer in his hand and the armor across his shoulders weightless, as if woven of fog and appearing only when needed.

It was clear at a glance that this is an invasion in progress, but in the melee there's little telling which dragons are Drago's creatures and which the ones that belong here. It's easier on Berk, where anyone he knows right down to the holes in their socks is a comrade, and anyone he doesn't is an enemy.

Although some of the dragons wear armor of their own, he sees from the light of spat fire reflecting back from them…

It hadn't been light he'd been looking for, though, as he and his Vikings tore through the endless soldiers on the beachfront and their towering, creaking machines. He had looked for shadow.

And when he had heard the distinctive shriek of a Night Fury, he had looked up just in time to see something like a sliver of the night slice the grey sky in two. It dived and disappeared between those walking mountains in the shape of clashing dragons, and Stoick had left Gobber and the others to secure the captured weapons and turn them on the ships lurking in the harbor instead.

And he'd _run_.

Now he watches Hiccup and Toothless as they put themselves back together again. The boy grounds himself against the dragon, hands gripping its shoulders like it – he – like _Toothless_ is the last lifeline in the roughest sea. Even under the noise of battle Stoick had heard Toothless purring thunderously, trilling and chattering small sounds that nevertheless rang as clearly as tears of joy, at least until Drago Bludvist started laughing, and both dragon and boy fell silent, staring.

The two of them are staring at him, too, Stoick realizes; they look from mad warlord to Viking chieftain in brief glances. The marks of battle are stitched across them in the bruises springing into sharp relief across one of Hiccup's cheekbones, the way that Toothless pants for breath, the tiny shivers that nevertheless whip the Night Fury's broad-finned tail about like a fan, the ash that dusts both of them like dirty snow.

There's confusion in their eyes as they look at him, and Stoick's heart clenches to realize that of all the times he's struggled to understand what Hiccup is thinking by the expression on his face, he can read his son best when the boy is frightened, as he is now.

They don't understand, he suspects. They don't understand why he's here, because as far as Stoick knows, Vikings have never helped them.

But he will, if he can.

Someone's got to stand with them, against a madman like Drago.

Before he has a chance to speak softly to them, to reassure them that they're not alone in this fight, a deafening screech rings out even through the deeper sounds of the battling leviathans, and at once they spring into the air and disappear, darting away into the melee above.

Drago grins terribly as Stoick turns back to the man, wishing he'd had the foresight to put a stop to Drago's ambitions long ago. But all that burns to ashes in a furious flame as the warlord says mockingly, "What did you whelp that creature out of, Stoick?"

Stoick roars with rage. How _dare_ this madman, this rotted sore on the face of all it means to be a warrior, or a _man_ , at that, speak of his wife, his Valka? He has no right to grind a fist into that wound, to put his death-befouled hands on her name and her memory!

The man could have insulted Stoick's people, or his honor, or his skill as a warrior or a leader. He could have called him soft, could have mocked him as a fool. But the suggestion – that the mother of his son was something bestial and disgusting, to make his children less than human – strikes closer to home than any insult Drago could have leveled against Stoick himself.

The chieftain acts without thinking, bringing his hammer up to drive Drago back into the tangle of dragons still lurking behind him, looking sheepish and ashamed at letting Toothless escape. Five of them, all of them bigger than the Night Fury, not to mention Hiccup, and still they'd lost; Stoick is damned proud of his sons.

The thought clears his head, whispering to him that Drago _wants_ him angry and stupid, and that there's no shame in refusing to let Drago dictate the terms of the fight Stoick can feel coiling beneath his feet. So he pulls himself up short after only a single strike, shattering a fallen chunk of ice to smaller bits of rubble.

Instead, he smiles; if there's a hard edge to it, let it be so. "She was the finest and smartest and bravest person I've ever met. She would have had you cowering before her." The words don't catch in his throat; they ring as true as good steel. "She raised _two_ of the best sons a man could ask for, and I am _not_ ashamed of them. Of _either_ of them. Look at all they've done. They've fought you to a standstill all on their own, looks to me!"

It's a wild exaggeration, with the sky full of dragons intent on tearing each other to pieces and with the earth shuddering beneath their feet as the leviathans struggle and wrench at each other. They've staggered back and forth with their pushing and shoving, neither yielding more than a stride of ground, pinned between mountain and sea. But it strikes the sore spot he'd aimed it for.

Drago snarls almost like a beast himself, and slashes out at Stoick with his spear. Stoick meets it gladly, battering at the weapon in hopes of shattering it. And while Drago holds his own for a few blows as a clash years overdue bursts into life, he's quickly forced into retreat, taking small steps and weaving among the destruction his war has caused.

It takes the Viking chieftain a few moments to realize what's off about the way Drago fights, and only a heartbeat more to notice that the man is missing an arm. It wins him no sympathy, and evokes no real surprise, only a shift in Stoick's strategy as he moves to take advantage of Drago's unguarded side. These things happen when you deal with dragons. It would have been more remarkable if the man was unscathed.

Stoick is not at all surprised to find that Drago has no intention of fighting with honor once his weakness is revealed.

"Kill him!" the warlord shouts, and steps backwards into the midst of those cowering dragons.

Their heads come up, shame vanishing from eyes at once narrowed with deadly focus, and Stoick finds himself staring down five dragons drawing in breath to build his funeral pyre all at once.

"Coward!" Stoick shouts. There's no curse vile enough for a man who says he's going to protect people from dragons and then turns the dragons he commands _against_ people.

Quite what he would have said instead, Stoick never gets the chance to find out.

Fire fills the world –

– blazing down between the Viking chieftain and his attackers, and a cacophony of screams from the sky give Drago's creatures very little warning as more dragons leap from the sky.

The fight is short and savage and Stoick doesn't see much of it, still blinking sparks from his eyes. But he plays his part, stepping in to slam his hammer down across an armored jaw before it can bite into one of the dragons that has just saved his life and waving the weapon to catch the eye of another and distract it just long enough to be pounced on and sent away screeching. He sees a knotted-together tangle of dragons thrashing around on the ground, each trying to get its fangs into the other. He sees one of Drago's soldiers shedding armor piece by piece as half a dozen stocky Boulder-class dragons ram into it from all directions, battering it between them.

He sees Toothless land after a brief chase as his opponent scrambles off into the sky, veering and limping, the Fury's teeth bared in a snarling grin that _almost_ matches the ferocity in Hiccup's matching smirk as the wild boy taps a long knife red with dragon blood across his cheeks in two swift movements, blotting out that bright bruise with triumph, before wiping it clean against his scaled armor.

Next to that, the fact that Drago is nowhere to be seen is meaningless. It almost doesn't matter that the great ice-white leviathan that his sons answer to has stumbled and regained its footing only just in time to keep the teeth of its enemy from its shoulder. It's someone else's problem that the greatest of the ships just offshore seems to be shifting about, smaller boats breaking off from it and heading towards the others.

That someone else might be him, a few minutes into the future, but one of Stoick's lifelong dreams has just come true, and if the impossible can happen unlooked-for, he can surely deal with a warship.

He has fought beside his sons in battle – unlike any sons he could have imagined or thought to ask for as they are – and they have been victorious together.

"You have no idea," he says to dragon and dragon-boy, hearing his voice crack and caring about that even less than he does about the vanished warlord, "how proud I am of you both."

Except they look over at him, intelligence and that mad rush of battle Stoick recognizes clearly sparking in their eyes. He knows they see emotion; Astrid never tires of telling him so, usually in the course of the lectures she thinks she's getting away with because he pretends he doesn't see through her subterfuge. She'll readily disguise teaching the old man as respectfully briefing her commander. So maybe – just maybe – they do know.

When their attention moves past him he tries to see the world as they might, and takes in the way they look at the destruction of what he suspects is their home. He sees the despair in their eyes and hears it in the soft, almost melodious, sounds they make to each other in a brief lull as the dragon chiefs step back and eye each other up for weaknesses and wounds. When their friends, the dragons that had fought alongside them to protect Stoick as he had protected them, come up to them, Hiccup forces his knife into a sheath clearly not made for it, reaching out instead to comfort and reassure and sympathize. Toothless leans against the dragons that coil around him and butts his head against a skull craned down to meet him.

So Stoick sees the moment when Hiccup trails a hand over a wound in a dragon's shoulder, tracing without touching, and that hand tightens into a fist. Almost simultaneously, Toothless' wings spread and tense, and Stoick can see the muscles in the dragon's back shift, ready to leap.

His son looks back at him, and meets his eyes as if reading his thoughts off his face, and maybe he nods acknowledgement, or maybe it's Stoick's imagination.

 _Enough_ , Stoick imagines his son saying.

 _Enough._

They're in the air so fast that the sand beneath them tries to leap to follow, and Stoick brandishes a fist and whoops, overflowing with pride.

Drago should have stayed and dealt with him, the Viking chieftain thinks, grinning wickedly. The warlord might find Stoick somewhat more merciful than a hunting Night Fury and a wild boy whose will is as strong as his mother's.

* * *

With no one at the helm, their pirated ship wallows in the backwash between the other ships of the fleet, but no force in the world could have pulled Astrid and her friends away from the ship's rail as the frozen island at the end of their journey came into view.

The battle between dragons in the sky had been one thing, a sight to send jaws dropping and eyes staring, but at least she had understood it. Still, Astrid had felt her heart nearly stop as the ocean had lurched beneath her and vomited forth a creature big enough to blot out the sun, if that sun would ever emerge from behind the heavy clouds.

Seated in Stormfly's saddle for a better view, she watches the great white leviathan that had once visited Berk smash its way out of the mountain and meet it head-on. They struggle, but the word isn't big enough for their battle, bluish-white and sullen red-tipped grey pushing and heaving.

Next to the flicker-fast battles erupting all around them, in the sky above the mountain and setting even the shoreline ablaze with Nightmare spittle and Zippleback gas and stranger fires, they look almost as if they're moving in slow motion. They could almost be from one of Astrid's more unsettling dreams when she's running as fast as she can and getting nowhere. Sometimes she's running to get to someone she cares for, her friends and her fellows on Berk or Stormfly, lately; sometimes she's trying to run away from something she can't see, unable to get anywhere but helpless to stop. The leviathans' movements are slow and laborious, but the _crack!_ as their tusks strike together makes her ears ring like a thunderclap.

"And a left! And another left! And the other one! The right!" Tuffnut cheers it on, jabbing at the air with his fists and jumping up and down. He hasn't hit anyone yet, but it's only a matter of time. "C'mon, you great thing! Get 'im!"

He's nearly drowned out by the racket of his sister and Snotlout yelling similar abuse at the challenger Drago raised from the sea, and even Eret smacks one fist against a barrel when he thinks no one's looking, in honor of a blow that left the dark-grey leviathan bellowing deep and rolling roars. It defies belief that there should be a _second_ creature so enormous, and yet there it is. It disgusts Astrid to think that there is a dragon so powerful that follows Drago willingly. No one could control something like that! How could they?

Over the noise of her friends at the rail, screaming at the battle, Astrid looks around. What she sees makes her breath come quickly, inspired.

"Hey!" she shouts at them, and to her shock they look at her at once. Maybe Snotlout's still glancing over his shoulder at the fight, bouncing on his toes as if he's ready to launch himself at the nearest dragon, but even he pays attention.

Astrid's despised this war fleet since the moment she saw it like a spatter of filth against the deep blue of the ice fields. It holds devices she's never wanted to imagine and dragons that she's come to think of as an intelligent and basically good-hearted species in the sort of slavery she'd never wanted to see, even when she still hated every dragon in Berk's skies. It offends her in much the same way as a heap of trash and offal left to rot in her village's town square would.

She can't imagine Drago cleaning up this mess he's put together and dumped on the world, and while it's not a pleasant task, someone should do it.

"I don't know about you," she says slowly, feeling a mischievous grin spread across her face as Stormfly catches her mood and rattles curiously, "but I'm pretty sure I'm on the side of anyone putting up a fight against Drago and his craziness. This looks to me like a good time to set some of those ships on fire before they know what's hit them. How about you?"

Although there might be _some_ fun to it. And Astrid could sure as sunrise use a chance to start hitting back for once.

It takes a second for her plan to sink in, but everything's fair winds from there.

"…are you asking us to destroy things?" Ruffnut says from behind the hands raised to her mouth, eyes shining.

"No…" Tuffnut answers her, with much the same expression on his face. "She's _telling_ us to destroy _lots_ of things. On _purpose_."

They whoop with absolute delight and dance in a circle, swinging each other around and colliding in the middle in a helmet-ringing head-butt. "To the dragons!" Tuffnut declares.

They make it to Barf and Belch on the second attempt, although each twin ends up with the wrong head and only a last-second intervention by Barf and Belch puts that confusion right.

"Eret, you want in?" Astrid asks under the sound of four young Vikings cheering as loud as they can. "You can stay here, if you want."

Instead, he nods to Stormfly, who eyeballs him skeptically, and vaults up behind Astrid uninvited. "Count me in," he manages to say as he carefully pushes away the axe between them where it's slung over her back.

"Dibs on the ship with the razor nets!" Snotlout shouts from Fearsome's saddle. The Nightmare seems to understand that he's being asked to cause the sort of chaos and destruction he usually gets into for fun, and for once makes no objection to his rider.

"No way!" Fishlegs yells back at him. Minnow buzzes around them as Dark Deep, the bigger of the two Gronkles, lifts him into the air alongside the lighter, longer dragons. "I want that one!"

"That's our first target, then!" Astrid cuts in. "We can be better as a team, people. Everyone follow me!"

She and Stormfly have done some combat flying before, leading the first strike on Dagur's raiders before the dragons following her got the idea and took over from there, but Astrid quickly learns that flying with other riders, in a sort of loose and squabbling and generally screaming formation, is another matter entirely. For the most part, she guides Stormfly towards likely targets and keeps a close watch on her airspace for anything flying at them, and decides to trust the others to follow.

Their teamwork needs a lot more team and a sight more work, and if there had been any soldier dragons remaining on board, they might have been in real trouble. But a rapid game of follow-the-leader around and across the army ship lingers in Astrid's memory only as a flurry of darting and dodging, and the heat of flames at her back, and the dizzying sensation of all of it being above her head in brief flashes as Stormfly rolls in the air, and the satisfying _whump!_ and _roar!_ of something catching on fire in earnest.

And yet the image that stays with her clearest is the shocked look on the face of a man who'd happened to be right in the flight path of Astrid and her dragon-riders, as Stormfly had dipped low to take out the barrels to either side of him, and the way he'd frozen as sharp spines rained down around him, hissing past so close she could have sworn she'd seen his hair flutter, and not one of them had so much as nicked him.

The ship and its arsenal are all but destroyed when Astrid nudges Stormfly into a hover so they can survey their good work. Her team reassembles around her one at a time, yelling with excitement and, in at least one case, waving a scrap of still-burning sailcloth like a flag.

"Ha! Serves them right!" Fishlegs shouts as important-looking bits of the deck crumble into ashes. Some hardy souls are trying to put out the flames. Most of them are diving over the bulkheads and swimming for ships that are less on fire. "Treating dragons like that!"

"Uh, what Fishlegs means in _not boring_ words is: That was fun!" Snotlout grins wildly.

"Let's do that again!" the twins yell in unison.

Astrid feels a smile as crazy as any of theirs spread across her face. Behind her, she can't tell if Eret is laughing or whimpering, but he'll just have to hang on.

"Last one to the flagship cleans out the stables on Berk until the first snows!" she shouts. "Bet Stormfly and I can hit more ships than any of you slow slugs!"

Oh yeah. It's on.

And if their formation flying falls apart after that, with Barf and Belch veering off in confusion as the twins scream unintelligibly at each other, and Fishlegs making a point of directing his Gronkle pair to vomit burning lava into the jaws of every snapping trap they cross over, and everyone losing their bearings after the eruption of a surge of high waves from the ongoing earthquake that is the battle between Drago's chief of dragons and the one defending its territory…

…well, they wanted to destroy things, after all.

She and Stormfly come out of a mad dash between ships, their metal sides screaming past into featureless blurs, with the flagship dead ahead and Snotlout and Fearsome close on Stormfly's tail. The Nightmare bursts into flames as the soldiers left on board manage to get off a few shots, drawing their fire and turning their arrows into ash before any of them can strike home.

Honestly, Astrid couldn't say which of them hit the deck first.

All eyes turn to them, faces twisting with confusion, and Astrid cups her hands over her mouth. "We're taking over this ship!" she roars. No point making it more complicated than that. "Everybody off!"

"Um, what?" someone in the crowd says, hoisting a big sword Snotlout would be proud to own. She doesn't have to look around to see him staring at it covetously. "If you think you can take this ship from us with just –"

A rain of small dark objects plummet from the sky and smash open, venting green and reeking gas all over the deck, and Astrid looks up to see Barf and Belch hovering overhead, a net slung between their two heads.

"Big ship ours now!" Tuffnut yells.

"Yeah! Or Zippleback jars go boom!"

Some of the Zippleback gas encounters Fearsome, who's still flaming. The resulting explosion flattens Astrid's entire audience.

The flagship's crew still doesn't clear out quickly enough for the twins, who throw down jars of Zippleback gas when they think people are dawdling, or when they happen to drop one by accident. More puffs of toxic, flammable gas burst out the one time someone shouts at Astrid that "Drago will never let you keep –" the dragons or the ship or their heads, she doesn't know and doesn't care and never stops to learn.

"Nice find, guys," Astrid praises the twins when they land on the deserted deck, punching both of their shoulders companionably. "When'd you get here?"

"We came here straightaway," Ruffnut says with such confidence Astrid automatically knows she's lying.

"You got lost in the crowd and ran into it by accident, didn't you?"

"Maybe."

She loses control of her team for a while after that as they try to take apart the enormous flagship all on their own, but as far as she's concerned they've earned the right to plunder everything they can from it.

In very little time at all, the twins and Snotlout and Eret have teamed up to steal everything remotely valuable they can get their hands on, tying off impromptu sacks and piling up their loot in the stern of the ship, which has escaped without scorching. She can practically hear them giggling, even Eret.

The last of their stolen stash of Zippleback gas goes to clearing out the lower decks, which is easy – a thrown jar is enough to fill an enclosed level to overflowing, and a shout of "Surrender or burn!" leaves even hardened soldiers with very little choice. The next level down, Barf and Belch finally get the idea and pitch in. They're slightly too big for the lower decks, but they squeeze their shared body through the corridors after their riders and crane their heads around corners. More than one group of soldiers turns to retreat from a Viking ambush and runs straight into a corridor full of sparking Zippleback.

The ship is impressively fire-resistant. Astrid supposes that's only sensible, if dragons are being kept aboard. The people are not.

While the others shout and chase confused soldiers through the innards of the hijacked flagship, Astrid waves down a newly arrived Fishlegs to help her with something much more important.

Drago's ship is crewed in part by dragons, strapped into harnesses and held in chains, and now those dragons cower, abandoned by their masters as if they were no more than tools to be dropped at a moment's notice.

So with Fishlegs and his amiable Gronkles reassuring the frightened, baffled dragons, Astrid sets out to destroy as many shackles and unlock as many chains as she can. Disabling the traps and restraints left lying about ready to imprison more of them may be more a matter of setting them off and slamming her new axe into anything that looks fragile, but it works nicely.

The poor creatures aren't hostile. They're nothing like the slavering fighters Drago had shown off in the pit, hungry for battle and fighting each other when there was nothing else to fight. She wouldn't have been surprised to see one of those dragons, if left alone, fight itself just to have something to rip at and tear. But there's none of that insane rage in these dragons. It's as if all their spirit was taken from them and channeled into the warriors in armor so that they overflowed with too much ferocity to hold.

Their confusion, as Astrid unsnaps the simple but solid restraints and Fishlegs babbles soothing nonsense, is heartbreaking. She can't look at them, after the first few.

And they don't know what to do when they can do as they please. They stumble around aimlessly, smashing into things, and crashing into blank bulkheads, and shying away from each other and the Vikings. For that last, she can't blame them, with most of her dragon-riders making lots of noise and breaking things and fighting with the occasional stubborn holdout.

Astrid is happy to have them break this ship. She'd sink it to the bottom of the ocean, if she could. And she would love to send them away from this horrible place, but when she returns to the deck for a breath of comparatively fresh air – the last of the Zippleback gas still lingers, on top of the metallic stink of the ship itself – she knows there's nowhere for them to go.

Everything beyond this stolen haven is a war.

"Hey, Astrid, are we really keeping this ship instead?" Snotlout asks when she meets up with her team on one of the lower levels, just as one of the last of Drago's crew flees past her. "I want it. I want it a lot. Can I be the captain? I'm gonna be the captain."

"Maybe. That's nice. And absolutely not," Astrid answers without pausing to consider. "We're definitely stealing it from Drago, though."

"Awesome. He's going to be really mad."

She grins. Okay. She'll admit it. It's a smirk. "I hope so." An idea occurs to her, and since her last idea worked out so well, she decides to run with it. "Up for some more flying? Because I've thought of a way to make him _really, really_ mad."

As long as they have this ship, they can use it as a base. If their luck holds – this is a major hole in her plan, Astrid admits to no one – they could go out and round up any other enslaved dragons they can find. If Drago wants this ship back, he's going to come back to find it full of dragons that won't answer to him any longer.

She explains this new plan to them. They don't notice the hole. "Anything in chains, break it out. Anyone who tries to stop you, stop them back."

Fishlegs volunteers to stay to wrangle their growing dragon herd, since he's used to dealing with a whole flock of dragons all at once back home, and, well, Minnow and Dark Deep are…not fast, he confides to her in a tactful whisper, or particularly maneuverable. Eret steps up to help him, claiming that he – as in _Eret_ , of course – is the best dragon wrangler he knows. They're already arguing about the best way to handle the lot of them as everyone heads for the top deck. Snotlout and the twins race off yelling enthusiastically, already bragging and insulting each other.

Part of Astrid's role as the chief-in-training is knowing when to delegate, and part of it is knowing when she needs to step back and let her people do the work she's given them.

She steps back now.

It's easier to walk through the passages in the heart of the ship now that they're empty of humans and dragons alike, and she lags behind her friends, kicking open doors and looking for holdouts from Drago's crew or dragons they might have overlooked. Most of them are already wide open, rifled through for anything shiny, interesting, sharp, or all three by the more sticky-fingered members of her team.

When she finds a cabin that's still locked, she doesn't hesitate to smash it open with her axe. Let Drago complain to her about it. She's quite sure the door will be the least of the things the warlord will want to hold her accountable for.

In the light of a dim lantern she sees pictures that might be maps nailed to the walls, although she recognizes only one of them even when she trims the wick back. It's old and yellowed and faded, but it clearly shows the Archipelago. There are gashes through the wide expanses of nothing but ocean that separate the scattered islands, as if someone has thrown a knife through it in anger, repeatedly. It's not the only map so marked, though.

On a low table bolted to the deck there is a scattered pile of heavy books that look as old and battered as the _Book of Dragons_ , if not more so. Reaching out tentatively, Astrid opens one at random, flipping to the first page that falls open. Pictures in a style she's never seen are nevertheless of dragons, although no dragons she's ever seen. It must be from very far away. A crisscrossing of notes in a jagged hand obscure some text and add to others, as if the owner of the book had written corrections directly onto the page uncaring of the damage to the original. Fishlegs would be horrified.

The room is littered with an array of objects so different from each other that at first Astrid thinks they're meaningless junk, discarded here and forgotten, but as she shoves them one way or the other with her boot and looks them over, she begins to see a pattern.

A metal sculpture might have been delicate and beautiful once; it's melted and shapeless now. There's a bone so large it must be from a dragon, notched and cracked. A twisted horn doesn't feel like it came from any ram. A battered metal ball all over spikes she picks up gingerly, reluctant to let it scratch her fingers. What she'd thought at first was a bowl, rattling in one corner, proves instead to be a shield made all of metal and dented so deeply it has curved back the other way. A piece of driftwood, worn smooth except for strange runes etched into the center of it, has been charred at both ends.

They feel like relics of battle, of wars won and lost, death and life.

There are more, but shapes she's seen a hundred times draw Astrid's eye, and she drops to her knees to snatch up Hiccup's dragon-clawed gloves from under a blunted sword that's been twisted almost into a knot.

"You keep trophies," Astrid snarls at the deserted room and the warlord whose presence bleeds from the walls. "What is this, some kind of record of all the lives you've destroyed? Everyone you've crushed to get your way?"

He's not putting anything of _Berk_ in this room, Astrid vows. She'll burn the whole island to ashes herself and toss those ashes into the sea before she lets Drago take anything from her home to gloat over.

She grips the familiar clawed gauntlets tightly, wondering where their owner is, in all this. It's Hiccup's "dragon chief" fighting out there, and Astrid wonders if this is _his_ home Drago is trying to tear down just as the warlord has threatened to destroy Berk.

He and Toothless must be out in the thick of it, fighting for their lives and their home. The thought catches like a fishhook in the bits of her wary heart that have opened just a little, enough to admit real friends for what feels like the first time in her life.

She doesn't want to lose any of them.

So what is she doing hiding down here in her enemy's lair? she scolds herself. There's a battle for everything she cares about still going on, and Astrid has never walked away from a fight.

Of course she takes the dragon-clawed gauntlets with her as she runs for the deck, hanging on to them as if they were Hiccup's own hands – he certainly treats them as such, she knows from watching him wear them as naturally as she wears her favorite and best-worn boots – and as if she could pull him and Toothless to safety by them. They'd probably turn and dive right back into the battle, she has to admit, chiding herself for the thought.

 _She_ would. If it meant protecting her home, and her friends, and her chieftain, she wouldn't let anyone stop her from throwing everything she has toward that mission.

Running now, she reaches the open air just in time to stop short, breath freezing in her chest in shock, as a deafening bellow from the shoreline rips through the air as if every scream of pain in the world has been forged into a single sound and then shattered raw from the forge.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	19. Chapter 19

_**Stormfall,**_ **Part Nineteen**

Now they do not fly wild and racing and spinning, tumbling through the air to dodge the strikes of howling strangers. The taste of sickness rises in Toothless' throat like bad not-food stinking and rotted – it is wrong to turn his ear-flaps away from cries of _pain_ and _anger_ and _outrage_ and _surprise_ and _despair_ and _fear_ all mixed together. He should fly to help them. He should not close his thoughts to those voices that he knows.

But _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ are hunting. They do not leap to the attack when a dragon with its metal skins all torn away lands beneath the ledge where they perch, crouched low to the stone as if they are part of its shadow. They flew around the edges of the battle and through spaces tearing open at the tails and above the backs of those flying to battle, and now they wait to pounce looking out over the broken shoreline.

There is a wide space in between the metal skins that would be an easy target to pounce at, but they do not strike. The dragon scratches its skins against the broken stones, growling with irritation at the way they are twisted around, and races away without seeing the dragon-pair.

Toothless does not let his tail twitch with the urge to chase it. He holds very still like he is only a stone, nothing to draw a watching eye.

On his shoulders, Hiccup murmurs low and thoughtful, tapping his paws against the black dragon's scales. There is less fear in his voice and more thinking, even though there is too much happening to think about!

The battles raging beyond the pair of them make Toothless startle and twitch and chatter with battle-longing even as he wants to hide away and wail and whimper at the shadow of the trespasser Alpha that still stalks across their territory, roaring and lashing out at their king. They do not fight like small dragons but like _mountains_. Their warring flocks scatter away from their feet and their heavy heads and their lashing tails and the wings that spread but do not lift them from the ground, and when they stagger and shift the ground that is _home_ churns and changes beneath them.

It can only be run from, such a battle.

It is best sometimes to do what the flock does. Many dragons together are safer, watching over each other while they sleep and rest and telling each other where good hunting places are. With all the dragons of his flock fighting all around him, Toothless is eager to join them. It would be easy, to listen only to their cries and join his voice and his fire and his claws to theirs. He sees the stranger-enemy with his metal skins all twisted away race past again, struggling to shake Cheats at Games from his shoulders as the little dragon tears at the scales clear to see. Even through the roars and screams and shrieking of many dragons, he picks out Cloudjumper's voice and knows their guardian is fighting too, somewhere. Dust Nose darts around Always Too Slow as the bigger dragon with his heavy paws throws his bulk against a stranger that does not leap from the ground quickly enough to escape the blow.

But others are losing their fights. Toothless almost does not know Carries Hatchlings as she backs into a slab of ice, raising her claws to defend herself against the many dragons cornering her against it. She quivers all over, cowering as they close in with teeth bared. This One of the Ones New Here lies still and silent at the end of a long burnt crash like a scar across the frozen sand. In the jaws of a biting trap, Pounces at Flowers waves her free wing and screams _fear_ as she tries to bite back. Her teeth scrape off metal and the trap does not let her wing and her paw and her tail go as humans move towards her with stabbing-striking-sticks ready.

Toothless wants to be everywhere. He wants to fight for them all. He wants to join Smells Like Smoke and Tomorrow Maybe as they dodge around a two-heads enemy that tries to burn them both as they fly in different directions, and the two halves of it fight over which way to go. He wants to turn away and race to Cloudjumper and cry out to be protected as if the dragon-pair were still very small and needed the many-winged dragon to watch over them as they slept and played even in the safety of the nest.

But Hiccup has an idea to send all their enemies away all at once, and Hiccup's voice is stronger even though he is only one voice, because to Toothless, Hiccup is the most important voice of all.

 _Careful-alert danger up up up now quick watch-out_ , Hiccup cries now, and Toothless leaps into the sky, taking off from their perch just as a blazing fire-skin cousin tumbles into it. His fires melt the ice that swallows the stone, splashing him until he does not burn anymore. But by then Toothless is banking away from the thickest tangles of fighting dragons, spreading his wings to soar and scout as they hunt for their prey.

They are hunting the Knotted Man, the strange and terrible human Alpha who commands dragons and speaks with a dragon's voice and snarls only hatred, who leads intruders to take away their nest that should be hidden-safe and attack their flock-family, who dares to stand beneath the feet of _kings_ and shoulder them aside to stomp his paws into a battle between dragons!

Even _humans_ know that the Knotted Man is an enemy and a wrong thing.

It is strange that the _St-t-t-t-t-kk_ would come to fight beside them, that the red-furred Alpha would know to find them and to – it baffles Toothless to think of it – _help_ them, and it is strange that he would speak to them softly and with a kind of fierceness in his eyes that does not threaten.

Hiccup thinks that the _pfikingr_ Alpha is pleased that they are fighting against the Knotted Man too, wondering in a soft chirring cry. Toothless snorts at that; they do not need the approval of _pfikingr_ to defend their home and their family.

But the _St-t-t-t-t-kk_ protected Hiccup when Toothless could not, and for that Toothless is grateful. Perhaps he will not stare as much with narrowed eyes at the man, next time the _pfikingr_ Alpha reaches out his paws towards them or says many sounds they do not know.

But for now they hunt alone-together, stepping carefully through the madness that has eaten into the place that has always been their home, untouchable and hidden, their haven and their playground and their safety. They mourn for it among short flights and careful leaps, and a slide down a sudden collapse of ice and snow and small stones that Toothless insists he _meant_ to do, and quick racing pawsteps from watching perch to hiding place.

They have two pairs of eyes, and so they look all over, searching for the way that their enemy moves and the darkness of the dead skin that he wears, and listening for his roar like a dragon's roar, and watching for the way his flock moves around him like a wake behind an ocean dragon skimming near the surface and through waves. Toothless does not want to see him, and he does not want to hear that roar. But he looks anyway, because they will not let the Knotted Man take their nest, and there is nowhere left to run.

And he trusts Hiccup.

As they fly, his beloved-companion holds tight to his scales – their flying-with is fallen apart like dead leaves, now – and chatters angrily, thinking aloud.

 _Human that human enemy bad bad bad hate fear disgust hate human roaring roaring dragon-enemy listen_ , Hiccup vocalizes, turning it all over, over and over.

Toothless snorts, dismissing all those thoughts with a single snarl, insistent. _Enemy!_

 _Enemy go us hunt yes yes us chase us fight go enemy_ , Hiccup agrees, growling.

They will find the Knotted Man, and they will drive him away. It is hard for Toothless to understand that the Knotted Man is the Alpha of the stranger-dragons. How can he be? There is an Alpha of dragons here, fighting with their king! Surely the dragons follow their own king!

But Hiccup thinks it will work. He tells Toothless that if they chase the Knotted Man away, the enemies tearing their friends apart will go with him. But it hurts, to turn away! It is not good of them, not to help! They are not being good dragons, to turn away from so many of their flock-mates in danger and in pain!

Even the Alpha that was the Alpha of voices, the Alpha of their enemies, will go with the Knotted Man, perhaps.

Their king is fighting fiercely, defending his ground that is all of theirs but his to rule. When Toothless looks, the two are locked into a tangle from which neither will back away. Their king's paws are braced against the side of the mountain that hides their home inside, and will not move. The dark one that struggles against him has dug his back feet so deeply into the shore that there are deep holes in it, filling up with seawater that swirls around those feet and hides them beneath dark currents choked with sand. The screams of their followers block out their growls, but the feeling of it rumbles through Toothless' chest as if it were his own growling.

It is hard to think, with that growling humming through him, and their king's command to fight still heavy and strong and burning bright and fierce inside his skull.

Toothless still cannot imagine that the Knotted Man might command the dark king. It is not the way of things! It cannot be!

But he can imagine that a small creature might be more dangerous than a large one. Snakes are small enough to step on, but even very fierce dragons avoid them. The hunting birds with talons are not good to argue with. Even a prey-beast can hurt a hunting dragon, in the rush of a pounce to bring it down when they tumble to the ground together, if it strikes out and its paws or its horns meet an unwary nose.

And Hiccup is dangerous, even though he is a small dragon.

Toothless does not know another dragon Hiccup's size, or even one the size of _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ together, who has the strength that his beloved one does, because Hiccup is clever and he can think of new things and things that are not but that _might_ be. Most dragons cannot think of things that _might_ be. And they are strongest and fiercest and bravest of all together.

So perhaps just because one of their enemies is smaller does not mean that he is not more dangerous than the larger one.

And even if chasing the Knotted Man away does not stop the battle and drive his stranger-enemies away with him, Toothless burns inside with rage at the human. And now is the time for hunting.

So they hunt.

Even as they fly, darting as quick as they dare away from claws that slash at them in passing and flames that snap out at them, Toothless hums an undercurrent of _love love love love_ to his Hiccup-beloved, and takes courage from the _love-you_ returned to him in the spread of Hiccup's paws across his sides, and the low and shapeless murmur that means only that they are together, still and always two-who-are-one.

Their world is falling to pieces around them, but they are holding each other together.

There is no peace to be found beyond the two of them as they hunt. Toothless burns the unprotected nose of a stranger-enemy when she points her muzzle towards them and opens her mouth to bite at the pair; they snap to a halt so close that Hiccup could reach out and touch her scales. She twists away and whips her tail around to strike them, and they dive away before it lashes against Toothless' side to knock them from the sky. Skimming low to the ground, Toothless dodges between the wreckage of broken human machines and shattered ice and stones that flew to new nesting places, feeling Hiccup crouch low to his back as the world flickers and flaps around them in flashes of colors and quick blinks of sight and sound.

 _Turn!_ Hiccup gestures, spotting danger and tapping on a shoulder to show Toothless which way to go to coil away from a dragon pouncing down at them. It crashes behind them, too heavy and not maneuverable enough to snap away from the fall as _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ would, and Toothless escapes into freer air.

At once he halts dead in the air, backwinging so sharply his wings _snap_ with the stop.

Just beyond the long shadows of the kings, the Knotted Man is walking.

He stomps heavily, angrily, roaring in the noises of dragons at the dragons fighting for him and louder in human sounds to the humans who have caught many dragons in a net and are struggling to pull them to a smaller ship dug into the sand. His striking-stick lashes back and forth like an angry tail, and his teeth show always.

He does not see them – Toothless would know, if they had been seen. The Knotted Man looks at them with such hatred, as if they were something _wrong_.

It must be very confusing, to be so wrong inside. The Knotted Man cannot see that _he_ is the wrong thing.

 _Must_ , Hiccup hums softly, which is _resignation_ and _determination_ all at once in his voice. _Flock us them frightened hurting fear stranger-intruder danger dragon-kin hurting here ours this_ , he says, setting his paws on Toothless' neck and hunching his shoulders as if digging his paws into the ground so as not to be moved. The black dragon does not even have to turn to look back to know it. He knows Hiccup's signals.

This is their hunt. It is strange that _pfikingr_ would help them in it, that they have an enemy that is the same, but a good a bit sort of strange. But with the Knotted Man so close Toothless cannot worry about _pfikingr_.

 _Wait,_ signals Hiccup, and Toothless snorts with bleak amusement that becomes real when his beloved-companion _whuff_ s with soft laughter, agreeing that to wait is _easy_.

So as they sneak through the rubble, stalking just out of sight of the Knotted Man, not letting him escape again, they talk and they think of a plan.

Toothless does not like it when Hiccup insists on _his_ way of doing things, but it is good to know what to do.

It hurts, though – it hurts cold and tearing – to feel Hiccup slip from his perch on the black dragon's shoulders, moving slow and reluctant and all his signals saying _don't-want._ It is their choice, this time, not a tearing-apart at the paws of humans, but the hurt is still real.

Toothless cannot let him go.

The black dragon takes no more than a step before whipping around and leaping to overtake the little dragon who is half himself, pushing his nose against Hiccup's narrow chest and mewling _no no no can't scared don't-want no no scared lonely love-you love-you love-you_ …

They could stay there forever, if the world would let them. Hiccup lowers his head to Toothless' and rests there, purring soft sounds of _sympathy_ and _trust_ and always, always _love._

 _Us_ , he says, dropping to a crouch and touching their noses together, nudging under Toothless' jaw to lift his head to say _pride_. He whispers a soft roar of _brave_ , a gentle command.

For Hiccup, Toothless can be brave.

For Hiccup, Toothless paces alone, flanking the Knotted Man like a shadow, careful not to be seen. The battle above goes on, but on the ground there are only the wounded and the captured and those that do not move anymore, the snow not melting on their sides, so no enemies drop from the sky to strike at him.

A shriek – loud and bright and challenging – catches the attention of the Knotted Man, and the head of the human Alpha comes up like _he_ is the one hunting.

Out in the open, perched atop a fallen stone, Hiccup stares down their enemy, baring his teeth. Toothless trembles to see him alone. The black dragon could never have imagined this hunt this way.

 _You!_ Hiccup snarls, gesturing to the Knotted Man. _You go!_ he commands, whistling a sharp and demanding _now!_

Toothless does not want his Hiccup-beloved to try to speak to the Knotted Man, but he is not surprised that Hiccup would rather talk than fight if he can. That is the way he is, and often in arguments in the nest Hiccup will back away from a fight, whistling apologies and persuading whatever flock-mate they have offended with some game or another to play instead.

But he will fight when he has to, Toothless knows, and then he fights to win.

The Knotted Man snarls back _disgust_ , and raises his striking-stick. With his stick and a snarl and his body he commands _submit!_ _You! Down!_

 _Look_ , Hiccup gestures without backing away. He gestures to the dead and the wounded, to the white snow trodden underfoot and burned and bled on until it is muddy and filthy and mixed full of ashes drifting on the wind.

 _Enough_ , says Hiccup, in the manner of dragons, but his eyes blaze. _No-more_ , his sounds say. He cries _don't-want_. He gestures _no-fight_ , and snarls close on the tail of it _you go_.

Toothless does not see the Knotted Man bare his teeth – the black dragon has prowled around behind him – but he can hear it in the man's voice when he laughs and shouts something back in human words, mocking and angry.

 _Look!_ the Knotted Man says too, and he roars as dragons do, bragging _pride_ of his own. He laughs _yes this good yes me yes proud good yes!_

 _You small_ , sneers the Knotted Man. _You nothing. Disgust._ He slices the striking-with stick through the air as if to swat Toothless' heart's-love like a fly that irritates but is not worth chasing because it cannot be snapped at and caught. _Not-important. I big!_

And always he snarls _anger_ , endless and overpowering.

It is a _sharp_ anger, now, like a slashing claw aimed to hurt, as if that anger is hunting after his Hiccup-beloved-one, like it has his scent in its nose and is tracking him down.

He will not let that anger catch Hiccup! Toothless tenses, preparing to spring _now_ , ready if the Knotted Man moves too close to his other self.

Even as he rages, Toothless shudders to think of the eyes of the Knotted Man turned on them, hating him and his other half as if they were a horror.

But then he bares his teeth and snarls instead. It is _good_ that the Knotted Man is disgusted by them, that they are a strange thing to him, because that means that they are not like him!

They are a _glorious_ horror, and they are the _best_ of strange things!

Good! Let the Knotted Man see them challenging him! Let him see them not being afraid!

And on his perch on the fallen stone, Hiccup hisses _giving-up_ and _frustration_ through his fangs, looking away. He signals that he has nothing else to say, that he is sure now the Knotted Man will never listen.

So Toothless leaps from his ambush, spreading his wings and rearing and summoning his fires to burn in his jaws, ready to blast out as battle-fire. He roars a _challenge-_ sound of his own, attacking big and loud and obvious, without subtlety, without grace, broad and open.

They have seen the Knotted Man fight before, now. They have watched him; they have tracked him. Toothless knows what he will do.

And at once the human turns to meet him, raising the striking-stick to whip out and crack across Toothless' snapping jaw and lunging body.

Toothless does not dodge.

Instead he raises his paws before him, and meets the stick with them, lunging all his weight against it as if he could pin it in the air. Toothless hooks his paws around it, holding it in place in mimicry of the grip the Alpha of humans has on it.

All his life he has seen Hiccup use his paws in ways most dragons do not. Hiccup uses his paws to hold and grab where his flock-mates would use their jaws.

And so Toothless has learned.

The Knotted Man stares, to see a dragon stand on its back legs and grab with its front paws like a human, and his own paw on the stick for striking with falters as he starts to step back.

Before he can, Toothless snaps at the stick between his paws, catching it in his teeth and snatching it away, wrestling the man for it just as he would snatch a bone with meat still on it from a flock-mate, but with all his strength.

Toothless leaps backwards, nearly falling over his own tail in his haste, but the stick is _his_ now!

He screams _triumph_ around it, dancing away and laughing _mine mine yes this mine c'mon you want? you want? mine mine! you c'mon you no no no mine this mine yes yes!_

The stick is the Knotted Man's weapon just like Toothless' claws and his fire are his. If he wants it to hurt dragons with, the Knotted Man will have to catch Toothless and take it from him!

But this is their hunt together, and as soon as Toothless leaps free and the Knotted Man is distracted, Hiccup pounces.

* * *

He springs at the Knotted Man to strike and escape before the man can turn on him and smash him to the ground small and broken, landing on the human's broad back as he would the shoulders of a prey-beast to be driven to the ground and torn into. But he does not turn his sharp-claw blade against the man.

His enemy stumbles, bowing beneath the little dragon's weight, and Hiccup keeps his balance on the man's shoulders easily. He has spent all his life moving across the backs of dragons, and he finds his footing without thinking, digging his heels into the edges of metal armor beneath the heavy cloak of dragon skin.

Hiccup shivers at the touch of the dead cloak that was one _like them_ , one lost to them forever. But even as he does, he turns his blade against it, slashing out and tearing, ripping the protection of the skin from the Knotted Man's armor. When their enemy has no clawed stick and no scales to protect him he will be afraid of the claws and flames and fangs and venom and horns and striking paws of dragons as he should be, and he will run and hide from them!

Dragon skin is tough, and his first strikes cut only into the Knotted Man's own fur as the human struggles to shake him away, staggering and roaring. But Hiccup knows very well the strength of dragon hide. When flock-mates come home wounded and bleeding, his paws are the only ones agile and delicate enough to tie torn scales together again with clever ties. There are many in the flock who live now because a dragon-boy with clever paws and magic he did not remember learning could tie wounds closed. He wonders which of them still do, with his flock-mates falling to the fierce ones hunting them down. He has broken many sharp-thorns for sewing with by trying to make them bite into living scales, and dead scales are tougher still.

So when the blade rings off metal he snatches instead for the links holding cloak to armor, and slashes the sharp-claw blade down against them, cutting them away.

When the cloak falls from his enemy's shoulders Hiccup falls with it. He loses his grip and his blade both as the Knotted Man lashes out with his only paw and drops towards the ground as if to roll and swat him away.

The dragon-feral hits the ground gasping – and blind, buried beneath the dead cloak.

For a moment, it feels _right_. Hiccup has always thought that he should look like Toothless, even before he learned what his clever paws really meant, and his image of himself has grown from that knowledge. They are the same inside: they know this surer than they know up from down and warmth from cold. They should look the same outside, like egg-pairs that hatch tangled together where there was only one egg, split in half in the ocean inside and growing into two instead. His scale-skins are the closest that Hiccup has been able to come, changing his colors so that he _too_ is a black dragon, although smaller, and different still.

He imagines in that moment that it is _his_ skin wrapped around him now, melting into him and changing him, or that he could grow all at once beneath its weight. From the alert and ready crouch he thrashes towards reflexively even as he pants for breath, he wants to rise again bigger and stronger and with brighter fires inside that can be summoned up as blasting-fire.

Then humans will _never again_ look at him and see a human! Dragons will not have to be told; _no one_ will ever doubt what he is! He will be _right!_

And then the reek of it hits him with his first clear breath, the scents of rage and disgust and hatred and madness that froths at the mind, human sweat and the stink of metal left too long to go bad in the rain and the salt air. He scents pain, and old fires that have died against it, the traces of dragons fighting and failing, falling before the enemy of them all.

It is _death_ coiled around him!

Wailing in horror and grief so sharp it bites through him like a blade, Hiccup struggles free of the dead cloak, shoving it away from him and scratching his soft-claws across his scale-skins as if the scent is like mud that can be brushed away.

No, no, no! Not like that! It is _evil_ , what the Knotted Man has done, to kill and then to gloat in it, to make the poor dead one serve him even after death!

Trembling with the earth as it shakes beneath the paws of the warring kings, Hiccup crouches over the fallen skin as if it were the body of one _like them_.

 _Sorry sorry sorry hurting sorry sorry_ , he mourns, mixing the deep roars of the kings and the shrill screams of dragons fighting in the sky into his cries to the forgotten lost one. When he reaches out to touch it again he does so softly, as he would one of his flock-mates that he had loved. He pets it _goodbye_ , crooning _grief_ and _sorrow_.

Frozen sand crunches beneath a heavy footstep, and further away Toothless cries out in panic, screaming _danger!_

The dragon-feral moves without thinking, seeing the shadow of the Knotted Man creeping near like a Dark Thing. He does not remember reaching for the blade fallen close by, or twisting around as he rises to his full height, or lashing out.

He should have thought that the Knotted Man too would have a second sharp thing, held secret against someone taking the first away.

It was only a swipe to drive him back, but when the Knotted Man lowers his only paw and the blade held in it away from his eyes, there is blood on his face. It is not placed there in triumph like the marks across Hiccup's jaws to match those of his cousins who have bitten their enemies and sent them away wounded, but dripping from a long slash across his jaw. The bright wound snarls always across jowls that curl back to show teeth.

His voice when he speaks in human words is hissed through teeth clenched tight around the sounds. Wounded and enraged as he is, the Knotted Man says clearly with his eyes that their battle is _over_.

There will be no more cages. No more traps. No more stealing and taking. No hidden nest to run to. No shadows to hide beneath.

Everything about him roars _death_ , and Hiccup knows that the human Alpha will kill him if he can, now.

The Knotted Man lunges at the young dragon, stabbing out with his blade. The madness that Hiccup sensed in him from the start boils over in his eyes, as if the foam in his mind is churning and ready to burst from his throat like burning spittle.

Wild creature that he is, Hiccup is terrified beyond thought. The Knotted Man is close enough to bite him, to sink his teeth in and rip and tear, and the _wrongness_ and madness in him will make a home in those wounds! It will poison him inside until _he_ becomes a monster too, foaming in the mind and biting and tearing at those he loves – the flock he has fought for, the dragons who have protected and loved him, the ones who have been his family all his life – _Toothless!_

He will _not_ –!

Hiccup is smaller, and faster, and lighter, and the Knotted Man's first strike misses.

His sharp-claw blade bites deep into his enemy's throat just as Toothless pounces and his battle-fire bursts against the Alpha's unprotected back, and Toothless' weight knocks the man to the ground as the black dragon leaps over him to rejoin his other half.

At once they are far away at the landing of a flying leap, clinging to each other, hiding close together to blot out the stench of blood and ashes that fills the world.

The Knotted Man does not get up again, and the dark king's despairing wail shivers through the air.

* * *

There is silence inside. Monster cannot understand the silence. There is a sound that has always been there. There has always been the sound of Himself. Himself roars loud always. Himself writhes with it in his thinking.

Monster has always heard Himself roaring. His thinking is like fire devouring a forest that never ends. Monster heard that sound for real once. He was very small then. There was a chain around his neck. His tusks had not grown then. Himself was there then. Himself was as big as the world then. Himself held the chain.

Monster can barely remember a time when there was not that sound. He does not like to think of a time when there was no sound. He does not think of it.

Now there is no more sound. Monster does not _understand!_

The silence knocks his paws aside. He stumbles. He steps away from the tusks and the weight and the tearing teeth and the blistering ice and the sharp eyes of the old king.

He cries out to fill the emptiness. His enemy's tusks do not strike him. But there is a pain in his chest.

Himself has always been there. Monster was scared always once. He was lonely always. He was in a small place. Humans looked into it. They laughed. They showed their teeth. They poked at him with their paws. He was too small to bite them. They laughed more when he tried. And they always went away.

They were giants then.

One day a human did not laugh. The man looked at the little dragon with the stumpy wings and clumsy paws and ragged frills as it panted in the too-bright sun.

Himself took Monster with him. Himself took Monster out of the small place. It was called a _cage_.

And Monster learned to be good. He learned to walk when the man made a sound for walking. He learned to stop at the sound for stopping. He learned not to run away when he did something wrong. He learned the thought-sound of his name that is _bad thing_. He learned that bruises heal quickly. And he learned that Himself can be angry for a very long time.

Monster did not want Himself to be angry. Himself took him out of the cage.

And then he woke up so _hungry_.

He was hungry always. The hunger ate into him if he did not eat. The hunger devoured everything he could find. Then it roared for more.

Himself fed him when he did things well. When Monster obeyed then there would be enough food. Then the hunger would not eat him. He would not die of hunger. He would not die of growing big.

He would grow strong. If he obeyed.

He learned to listen for the sound of Himself thinking. He learned to listen past the anger that boils in the mind of Himself always. He learned to listen for what to do before Himself could speak the words.

By then he was much bigger. But he was still hungry _always_.

It did not matter that he was bigger than Himself. He had to behave best of all. He was punished when he did not. If he did not obey then Himself would not feed him.

Sometimes he pulled at the chains around his new soft tusks. The chains bit into him and left scars. The scars are hidden now. They are covered by bigger chains.

He would have come back! He only wanted to hunt!

But Himself was very angry. His fires inside blazed at Monster. And Monster did not want him to be angry.

That was how he learned that it was wrong to doubt Himself. Sometimes Himself did not feed him even when he was very hungry. That meant that Monster had been bad.

So he learned to listen better. He did not know what he had done wrong. So he listened more carefully.

He was bigger than everything when the hunger was finally satisfied. He was a giant then.

But Himself has always been the giant to Monster.

Monster calls for him now.

He has always been aware of Himself just as he is aware of the sun. Monster follows Himself because that is the way things are. He is frightened of Himself. Monster would have eaten himself inside if Himself had not fed him. He would have died. He is in awe of Himself. Himself is never afraid. He is always strong. He is always sure.

Monster does not understand love. But he understands need.

And now there is silence.

Why is there silence? Why?

Monster steps backwards again. He trembles. He waits for Himself to start roaring again. He has heard the sound-voice of Himself fall silent before. When his voice comes back it is always louder. When his voice falls silent it means that Monster will be shouted at.

Himself is sometimes silent when he had been shouting. That means that someone will be hurt.

Monster whimpers. He reaches out to tell Himself that he is trying. Himself should not be angry with him. He is doing as he was told!

The old king is fighting back! He will not yield! He is quick even on the land instead of slow! He is not afraid to fight! He did not shrink away afraid!

Monster will try harder, he promises. But Himself has never been able to hear Monster's thinking. His master shouts but he does not listen.

Himself is not shouting now.

He does not begin to shout again.

And Monster cannot find him in his thoughts.

Monster's whimper becomes a wailing cry.

He does not care that the old king still lives. The tusks looming close to his flanks do not matter. The many battles between his followers and the wild ones do not matter. The doings of humans who follow Himself do not matter. He sees none of them. Instead Monster steps away. He tries to walk carefully. All that matters is the shape of Himself. But Himself will be angry if he crushes something he should not. But Monster is very graceless out of the water. So his steps are great and heavy.

Himself lies in the frozen sand without moving. There are small dragons near him. They retreat when Monster steps near. They do not matter. They mean nothing.

Himself does not rise when Monster's shadow falls across him. He does not turn to glare. He does not wave Monster away to fight more.

Keening in confusion, Monster lowers his head towards the ground. He twists his head to nudge against Himself with one tusk. But that is a _bad_ thing to do! Himself does not like it when Monster reaches out to touch. When Monster was small Himself did not touch him to pet and to groom. He reached out only to punish. His paws fell on Monster only to control.

Monster learned not to paw at him. He learned not to butt his head against the man's side. He learned not to lean against him. He was fed when he stopped. He was fed when he stood away a bit to wait and listen.

When Monster grew very big then he learned how to carry Himself safely. Himself was pleased with this. He laughed inside when other humans wailed to see them. He laughed inside when dragons crouched beneath his eyes.

Now Monster rocks back and forth. He digs at the earth. He looks all around. But there is no one to tell him what to do. He is caught between his instincts and his training.

He does not want to be bad. But he wants –

Monster reaches out one paw very carefully. He waves it in the air above the still shape of Himself. He draws it back and flinches. He waits for the blow. He waits for the roar. He waits for the disappointment.

They do not come.

He raises his paw again. He digs it into the sand nearby. Still Himself does not move.

Still the angry fires inside Himself do not roar to life to devour.

When he tries again his paw nudges the shape of him. It is _very_ bad of him to do so! But not even this wakes Himself from his stillness.

There is a sound on Monster's throat that he did not put there. It is high and rolling and endless. It tears like hunger. It echoes like emptiness. It presses on him like the deepest oceans.

Everything is silent there deep below.

There are many sounds here. None of them are the right sound. Monster's cries drown them all.

It is impossible that Himself should be _not there!_

Without him Monster does not know what to do.

Is it bad for him to not fight anymore? He is a good fighter. He is fiercest of all. Himself is pleased when he is fierce. But Himself is not here now.

He wanted to defeat the old king. Then Himself would be pleased with him. Then Himself would approve of him a little more. He would not be _bad thing_.

But –

Monster does not want to fight anymore. He wants Himself to get up. He wants Himself to tell him what to do.

 _ **No**_ , Monster wails inside. _**No**_.

He wails _**confusion**_.

He wails _**lost**_.

All around him his followers are listening. Their wings falter in answer. They break away from fights that have slowed. They flap and whimper with Monster's disbelief. They set their wings out to soar. They do not leap at the wild ones. They do not bite. They do not flame. They do not slash. They do not spark. They do not spit.

The battle is not important anymore.

Humans do not listen to the thinking of dragons. But the ones that followed Himself on ships hear Monster's cries aloud.

Monster does not look at them. They raise their paws. They hunch their shoulders to block out his wailing. None of them are Himself. None of them can –

 _ **Command!**_ Monster pleads.

His followers think it with him. They ask for someone to tell them what to do.

 _ **Stop**_ , says the king of the wild ones.

The wild king stands still. He does not strike. Monster's sides are unguarded. He does not lash out. He does not leap to tear into Monster's trailing and useless wings with heavy paws. He does not lunge at the soft places hidden beneath his rival's belly. His tusks do not stab.

He strikes more quietly. He strikes with thought.

 _ **Pity**_ , the king of the wild ones thinks to him.

Monster cannot understand that. He wails with confusion. Nothing makes any _sense_ anymore. If the king of the wild ones had turned his side to Monster's tusks then _Monster_ would have struck.

Himself would have been pleased with him for fighting so well.

 _ **Stop**_ , the old king commands the dragons that followed Monster.

 _ **Stop**_ , he says to his wild small ones.

Monster does not care that his followers are being taken from him. He does not care that his fierce ones sink to the ground to submit. He does not care that there are small shining fires burning on the edge of his mind. He recognizes the small bright one. He recognizes the small hiding one. But he does not care that their fires have spun together to be a single flame. He does not care.

He does not care that the humans who follow Himself are staring instead of fighting. They do not make their metal things snap and hiss and sing their cruel songs.

He has never liked the metal things. He does not remember why. It was long ago. And everything had been so _big_ back then.

He cares only that the world is not as it was. Monster cannot understand it anymore.

So he wails at the hurt that grows inside him. He wails to fill the silence in his mind. He wails as if his screams could call back the burning sun.

All around there is wind howling down among the shattered ice. It springs from the beating wings of dragons. It races on even when those wings fold as dragons settle. It catches Monster's voice. It tears his voice away. It rips at his throat as it goes.

There are waves that strike at the shore. They set ships rocking. They lap around Monster's tail held limp and low in defeat and despair. They whisper.

There are the smaller sounds of wounded dragons as they cry out with their small pains. There are the small sounds of wounded humans. There are the sounds of humans speaking to each other in their own words. There is the crushing sound of crumbling ice.

And Monster howls.

Otherwise everything is still while the ice melts into the sea.

* * *

 _To be continued._


	20. Chapter 20

_**Stormfall**_ **, Part Twenty**

Stormfly shuffles her feet and nudges against Astrid, warbling and chittering with anxiety and fear clear in her voice. Astrid pets her quiet automatically, murmuring nonsense. "Hey, girl, it's okay," she promises without any idea of whether anything is. "Good girl. I'm here." But even as she reassures the Nadder, she's fighting the temptation to hide behind Stormfly instead, or to jam her hands over her ears and flee from a sound so loud she imagines the body of the ship is humming with it.

There are times in the deepest parts of devastating winter when even the loudest Vikings on Berk stop shouting, and walk out of their way to avoid as many snowdrifts as they can. Everyone whispers or holds their breath when they have to walk under the edges of the cliffs half the village is built on, or the eaves of the Great Hall, lest some misplaced sound provoke it all into burying them beneath a suffocating, lethal blanket of snow and ice.

The endless cry from the dark leviathan, Drago's creature, the massive dragon-warrior fighting against Hiccup's "dragon chief", is the sort of sound that brings avalanches crashing down. There's no wound on it deep enough to do any real damage, from what Astrid can see, and it's on its feet still, stumbling away from its opponent, but it screams like something is tearing it apart and it is powerless to do anything but wail.

"What's going on?" Astrid asks the Nadder pointlessly. She'd left Stormfly up on deck and told her to "guard", imagining her friend as a lookout while the Vikings were routing the lower decks, but how could Stormfly have warned her about something she doesn't understand?

Scattered across the deck in the midst of the newly freed dragons, her friends stand as if frozen, for the most part with their own hands pinned to their ears. Their expressions range from bafflement to sympathy to nausea, and Astrid feels all of those emotions ripple through her like a wave. It's hard not to flinch, at the pain in that cry.

Trying to think through the noise, she sees the other leviathan lift its head unopposed, and braces for its roar. No sound bellows from it, but its head swings back and forth, surveying its island. As it does, the bursts of fire that have been the clearest sign of dragons relentlessly fighting each other go dark. From this distance, the dragons aren't much more than colorful specks blown about in the air like leaves, but now they begin to drift towards the ground as if the wind keeping those leaves aloft has fallen still.

Behind her, Fishlegs exclaims, "What are they doing?" in a voice choked with the beginning of tears. Sentimental, Astrid thinks almost fondly, but she can't blame him too much in the face of the noises that creature is making. It's stopped screaming, only to begin moaning hollowly.

"What are who doing?" Astrid turns away to ask, and immediately swallows her words as Fishlegs gives her a crushed look. Every dragon on the deck – and there are many, huddling under the knobs and spikes and spires that make the ship look so aggressive, and cowering together in tight knots with every dragon's head hidden under the next one's wing, and staring at nothing very much – has snapped to attention. Heads kept so low their jaws scraped the wood of the deck are now raised high and alert. Eyes kept tightly closed against even the light of the overcast day are open now, wide and staring. That oversized metallic dragon that had nevertheless whined every time it heard anything close to disapproval in human voices, the one Astrid had last seen hunched in on itself as if trying to make itself small enough to disappear, now sits up on its hind legs and looks out over everyone, shoulders spreading as its wings creak out for balance.

The ones that had been whimpering, in confusion or fear or in a sort of hopeless appeal, have all stopped. Not one of them makes a single sound.

"Hey!" Snotlout shouts from somewhere behind the mast. "Fearsome! What – hey! Look at me, you overgrown lizard! What are you _looking_ at?"

When Astrid glances up, it's a painful shock to see that Stormfly, too, is staring out towards the island, and the pupils of her golden eyes are narrowed and strange.

 _No,_ Astrid doesn't even manage to whisper.

What _now?_

The effect lasts only a moment. Stormfly relaxes, tension melting from her sides, and lowers her head to eye up Astrid with a clear gaze again. _Strrrrtt_ , she rattles almost cheerfully, shrugging her shoulders and rustling her wings. She shifts from foot to foot and chatters as if excited, and Astrid has to back away as her Nadder friend pokes her overlarge nose against Astrid's body repeatedly.

"What – I don't understand –" Astrid blurts, backing away. "Up?" she guesses. "You want me to mount up?"

"Up" is a word Stormfly recognizes. She spreads her wings and waves them, trilling.

Astrid can't argue with that. "Okay," she concedes, ducking around Stormfly and swinging herself into the Nadder's saddle.

From there, she can see that the dragons from Berk are pestering their riders in much the same way, and when the Vikings see Astrid on her dragon's back, they follow her lead. Friendly Minnow consents to Eret riding on her back, but she sticks close to Fishlegs and Dark Deep.

"Wait!" she cries out anyway as Stormfly leaps into the air. They can't leave the flagship! If they leave it unguarded, Drago's people are going to come and steal it back! "What are you doing? Where are we going? Stormfly? Stormfly!"

The Nadder doesn't listen to a single command, setting a course over the ships still intact – many of them worse for wear, though – and towards the island. The other tame dragons are following her, Astrid sees when she looks back, but the ones they'd freed –

They're starting to look around and move to explore the ship, and they begin to find their voices, the sounds drifting over the water. They look like they're starting to relax and interact with each other. One or two are grooming themselves, gnawing at overgrown claws or scratching scales against the bulk of the ship. And a distinctive _crunch_ suggests that some of the crates left out on deck might have contained something edible.

And best of all, there are a few with their paws up on the railings, heads high, jaws beginning to open in the suggestion of smiles, and their tails waving back and forth.

Astrid wouldn't wager even a pebble on anyone trying to board _that_ ship.

So she puts it to the back of her mind while Stormfly banks in the air and skims along the shoreline, following one of many long plumes of smoke.

"Is that Gobber?" Snotlout yells from right behind them. "What's he doing here? I don't believe it! We can't get away from these guys!"

"Halloo, Vikings!" a shout comes back from the familiar warriors ganging together on the beach in the midst of some extremely destroyed siege weaponry. There's a Viking ship drawn up not far down the shore, and Astrid recognizes it as one of the overbuilt raiding spoils of war, if they still want to call such a little squabble a war. Drago could teach Dagur a few things about war – not that that's anything but the worst idea _ever_ in all of Viking history. "Dragonriders incoming!"

The moment they land, they're swarmed by people who should be leagues from here, all of them trying to greet the riders all at once. People she doesn't remember at first mob Eret, and only when she picks out cries of "Boss!" among everything else and sees him light up at the sight of them does she realize that they're his crew. Astrid gets hugged more times than she'd really like, by people who otherwise drive her insane. They clap her on the back and tell her what a fight it's been, so far, and how glad they are to see her, and who would have thought that they'd be fighting dragons again after all. It takes a minute for her to escape from the throng.

"When did you all get here?" she asks Gobber, who is – disturbingly – the sanest person in sight. " _How_ did you all get here? Why –"

He cuts her off before she can start sputtering like a kettle left over the flame. "Aye, and did ye think Stoick would sit still t' let ye go off alone? Though it's most of the north we've seen, gettin' here. Unpleasant sort of folk, en't they? Some nasty toys they've got, at that, but I do like me sommat with loads o' movin' bits t' go awry." The smith nods at the wreckage littering the shoreline with an air of satisfaction.

"The ships are worse," Astrid says fervently. "Trust me. They're worse. We took down the flagship, but this is too big for us, Gobber. Stoick was right. Drago is _mad_ , and I told him about Berk, he knows we have dragons of our own now, he's coming for us next, and – where _is_ Stoick?"

He stands patiently enough as her words turn to babbling, although with a wry grin twisting his face. "Where else would 'e be? Gone t' find his lad in all this. Left me wi' _that_ lot to handle, since ye were elsewhere."

She follows his gesture with the nasty bludgeon he uses as a battle hand. The fighting in the air has stopped, and the eyes of every dragon in sight – save the wailing, shaking, moaning behemoth, which seems to be blind to everything, now – are turned towards the ash-white leviathan as it rears up onto its hind legs and looks out over the world. But a little way down the shore, there are men in armor banding together, still brandishing plenty of weapons and shouting to each other.

Their dragons are no longer responding to them. When Astrid creeps out to the blackened hulk of something that might have been a net-slinging weapon and might have been a ballista, she overhears a shout that _must_ be a curse and sees someone drop his end of a chain. The dragon on the other end of it doesn't even look around.

But she can see plenty of eyes turned towards the Vikings, as well. Whatever has put a stop to the battle among dragons, it's not working on the humans. They're still armed, they're still the enemy.

They look like people on the defensive, now. But Astrid knows from listening to her own people, behind her, that if the only thing that still makes sense is a fight between humans, then they will cursed well have that fight.

The Vikings are the only enemy they really understand, right now, Astrid guesses.

"But where's Drago?" she mutters.

"Why would you _care?_ " Tuffnut chips in, and she doesn't have to look around to know that her friends and her people and their allies massing at her back.

"Because I prefer to know where my enemy is," Astrid says grimly. "Because his invasion has just hit a reef, and I'm not looking forward to the consequences."

She nearly jumps a fathom when a hand falls on her shoulder, and only the unspoken knowledge that she's surrounded by friends keeps her axe on her back instead of in her hand and swinging.

Stoick looks drained and battered, grey and sad. There's a strange twist to his expression, and his jaw is locked tight, but the hand on her shoulder is warm.

"Chief?" she whispers.

"Good work," he says. Nothing more. But it's high praise, and Astrid takes it as such. His hand on her shoulder is a weight, but it's nothing compared to the weight he's just taken from her. Her chief is back and she is no longer the only voice of command, all the responsibility for their lives on her.

"What's the plan, chief?" Gobber asks, but Stoick doesn't answer. Instead, he walks out into the open, in clear view of Drago's human army. His Vikings follow him, advancing on the soldiers. There are still fewer of them, even with the addition of Eret's hunters, but the men clustering together and bringing weapons to bear look much more uncertain than the mood that hums among the Vikings.

"Your leader's dead," the chief says. His voice carries without shouting. It should echo. It should thunder. "If there's any one of you eager to take Drago's place, let him show himself now."

There's no answer from the people crowded together along the frozen beach. Possibly they don't believe it. But Astrid does, after a moment of shock and disbelief that feels like having the ground snatched out from under her, as if she'd trodden on a step that wasn't there in the half-stupor of exhaustion, or had a weapon vanish from her hand like a dream. She can hear the truth of it in Stoick's voice. And if Drago is dead –

"What happened?" she hisses to Stoick. He doesn't answer her. He doesn't even give any sign that he heard her question.

A fresh moan from the dark leviathan underscores Stoick's declaration. The enormous dragon is still just standing there, swaying back and forth like a storm strong enough to flatten an entire forest is battering against it. If she looked, would she see it mourning over a body at its feet?

Honestly, Astrid can't bring herself to do the same. If Drago is dead then Berk is safe! In the days she'd been given the freedom to explore his fleet, she'd met many people who hated dragons, who resented them, who were afraid of them, but never anyone who _loathed_ them the way Drago does…did. And certainly while there were many people who commanded parts of the army, she doubts that there is anyone among them with that sort of fanatical ability to inspire such hatred and passion and blind conviction in others.

Drago was never the sort of person to tolerate rivals.

"No one?" Stoick asks again. No – his voice is not steady, Astrid realizes. It's flat and cold. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Gobber turn to look at the chief instead of the soldiers arrayed in a loose – and crumbling – formation across the desolate shore. He hears it too, she suspects.

No one steps forward. Several people step back. Weapons falter and lower. The dragons in armor are still standing around like they've been paralyzed or flash-frozen into ice. The last man still trying to provoke a response from any of them gives up and notices that he's all alone and exposed, and he couldn't run back to his friends any faster if his boots were on fire.

"Good. Now. Here's what's going to happen. You're going to get on your ships, and you're going to leave," Stoick commands. "You've made enemies here."

Astrid can see their eyes flicker over the force arrayed against them, Viking warriors and dragon hunters, and the wild dragons scattered across the stone and ice and debris of the island.

"Don't ever return."

A very silent few heartbeats, broken only by the unending moans of the dark leviathan, go by. But while there's no telling where it begins, movement breaks out among the soldiers, a suggestion of activity turning into a less-than-orderly retreat.

"Wait!" Astrid tugs on Stoick's arm. "The dragons! I said –" When he looks down at her, she explains hurriedly, "There are more dragons on their ships. They've got them chained up, they're using them as slaves, they're trapped there – we freed the ones on the flagship, chief, and I know there are more –"

Stoick gives the order without hesitation. The humans can leave. The dragons stay here.

And that's more or less what happens, as the soldiers return to the ships that are still seaworthy. The wild dragons hiss at them as they walk past, and what starts as an orderly retreat turns into a rout.

Astrid isn't sure how her few dragon-riders are going to search all the ships for captive dragons, but as it turns out, the enslaved dragons have found their voices and their courage again. It's easy to hear which ships still hold prisoners as dragons yowl to be heard. Instead of looking away dully, they react to the people around them, snarling and pulling at their chains, fighting back until someone approaches them with genuine intent to release their bonds and open the doors keeping them from the sky.

It takes time, as the long summer day wears on. Only once do her friends and their dragons have to chase down a ship that makes a break for it, and it doesn't get very far unnoticed with the dragons aboard yelling their hearts out. A blockade of wild dragons and former slaves stops it short long before the Vikings can get to it.

And Astrid rather enjoys seeing formerly complacent dragon-wranglers struggling to deal with dragons with actual _spirit_.

Stormfly laughs with her at the sight of Ruffnut and Tuffnut lecturing baffled, subdued men three times their size – combined – on the right way to deal with dragons, berating them about everything from the harnesses lashing a matched pair of exotic-looking dragons to a cart, to the fact that no one seems to know what kind of dragons they are – the twins decide that they're called Shinybellies – to the condition of the men's boots.

* * *

"You are all such _idiots_ ," Eret says for the seventh time – Rorvik is keeping count on his fingers. Eret didn't even know the man could smile without his face falling off. "I have the stupidest crew on the ocean. I mean it. The brains of every one of you put together couldn't fill a beer mug."

"More room for the beer!" Denholm says cheerfully, and enough people laugh that Eret doesn't stop to wonder if that had even made sense.

"Just the worst," says Eret, nevertheless grinning widely, and thumps the nearest of his friends on the back. Any pretense of being their untouchable, all-knowing leader has been tossed aside, and his entire crew is clustered around him, all trying to reach out and at least clap a hand across his shoulder. "What happened? Get bored of the nice warm cells and the food?"

"Aw, c'mon, boss," Andvari says, rolling his eyes and looking like he'll burst if he doesn't give in and smile. "You didn't think we were going to let you have all the fun, right?"

"Can't get rid of us!" chips in Norge.

"Curses," Eret volleys back even as he feels the smile freeze on his face. He knows Andvari had meant it as a joke, but it doesn't feel like it. Fun? Far from. "You're on to me."

"Said we'd follow you anywhere, didn't we?" Midrag nods. He throws his arms wide, or tries to, despite Byrne being in the way. "Here we are!"

"You idiots," says Eret again. Rorvik ticks off another finger. "Don't you trust me to look after myself?"

"No," just about everyone says.

"Oh yeah. I forget. You know me."

Eret matches them laugh for laugh, letting them see that nothing has changed, that he's still their invincible leader, that everything is still all right, but inside he's numb and flash-blind. The brand on his chest still pulls in the cold rolling down from the ice mountain. That cold shimmers from the shattered pieces of ice lying around, turning what had probably been a rather featureless beach he wouldn't have given a second glance into a labyrinth. Every twinge is still a knife dancing towards his heart.

Can it really be true that there's no hand on the hilt of that knife anymore?

Drago dead? It doesn't sound real. It's beyond belief.

He'd given up even dreaming of it. There are people he would like to see dead, or at the least hanging from their heels over a very deep ravine and swinging in the breeze, and he's passed many a long and wearisome night on watch duty imagining them in increasingly horrible situations. He's wished them dead, and if he'd been told that, say, that brute Ryker had found a dragon he couldn't deal with, it wouldn't have been a surprise.

But Drago? The day he'd burned Eret to punish him, the day he'd lifted a brand from the hearth ready-lit and burning on deck, the light from the sullenly seething metal had lit up his eyes and revealed what Eret had always afterwards thought of as Drago's true face. It had changed the craggy brows and old scars of a man with a thornbush growing in his gut, spurred on by something unseen, into the mask of something from one of the more horrible underworlds. Eret had heard all the stories, but never really believed in any of them. Not _really_. Not for real, he'd told himself.

Until that moment. Just after the sound of the brand touching his skin, and just before the pain. In that moment Drago had gone beyond being the man who commissioned him to hunt dragons, or the man who commanded an ironclad armada, and become something inhuman. Facing Drago was like facing the sort of storm that turned the sky black and flung around thunderbolts that made Eret's teeth rattle in his jaw.

At some point, in Eret's mind, Drago had stopped being a person and had become instead a _fact_. Eternal, unswayable, unchangeable, unstoppable.

He can't reconcile that with _dead_.

Eret has lived in fear of Drago Bludvist for years. Everything he has done since the warlord stood in that destroyed village square and laughed in his face has grown out of the fear of him. Keep his friends alive – and out of Drago's hands. Hunt dragons – for Drago. Keep the ship sailing – it's the only freedom we have. Don't be afraid of the ghosts and dragon-godlings in the darkness – demons are real, and they stand in the light and command armies.

He doesn't know if he remembers how not to be afraid.

Maybe it's just one of those foolish ideas that lodge in his mind and spring up like woodworm at odd moments. Certainly none of his friends are thinking about this, as they talk over each other, every man of them at once trying to tell him about how they'd followed a dragon – a dragon! – here, that Berk's chief had spoken to it and it had led them here, like magic, boss, like a sign!

No, he never could have abandoned them to make new lives for themselves on Berk. Eret would have missed them terribly.

Not that he'll ever admit that, not out loud. Probably.

A few steps away, the Vikings are spreading out and taking over banishing Drago's human troops from the island. They're badly outnumbered still, every horned helmet well surrounded, but they shout to each other and walk with confidence, while Drago's forces seem to be handling the news of the warlord's death about as well as Eret is.

Is that what he looks like? Eret wonders, as a handful of men back away from a mostly intact ballista, a Viking woman with braids longer than Eret's arm snapping at them to leave it alone. They look like something has blown up in their faces – he saw that expression on several of his crew the day Grayden had accidentally dropped what must have been an early shipment of those Zippleback gas bombs, now that Eret thinks about it. They'd all looked permanently surprised for weeks. No matter what they were actually doing, they gave the impression of wandering around looking for their eyebrows and the rest of their hair.

Once again, he finds himself looking to the Vikings for some idea of what to do next. They don't understand what's just happened here. They didn't know Drago, most of them. They never saw what he was capable of. They don't understand that a titan has fallen and the world has lurched off-course.

Instead they've accepted it as just something that happens, and Eret envies them that confidence, even if it's born of ignorance. You start a war, you might end up dead. Those are the facts of life and death.

Stoick has disappeared somewhere. That sharp-tongued blacksmith with the incomprehensible accent has taken over in his absence, and whether he's cursing at the Vikings or praising them as they spread out, Eret can't tell. He overhears Astrid rounding up her dragon-riders with a shout, the lot of them taking off back towards the ships. Somehow he wouldn't put it past them to wrangle the entire fleet on their own.

Eret decides that he's definitely very impressed by those irrepressible Viking dragon-riders. He's never going to tell them that, of course. Astrid will be smug, if he admits that in the long run he thinks she's right about more things than she's wrong about. He can see it now.

He has to admit to himself, though, that he's grown to like them. They're probably never going to really trust him, but some part of him hopes that they might be persuaded to like him too. Somehow, he doesn't think the argument that he never changed sides, he's always been on his _own_ side, isn't going to get anywhere with any group with Astrid in the lead, but he'd much rather have them as halfhearted friends if that's what's on offer. Even if that offer does include Ruffnut. Oh, for the days when she was his biggest problem.

Still, he can appreciate the dragon-riders' sense of loyalty much more with his friends crowded so close around him that the sharp pangs from his scar have all but died away under their warmth. If Astrid and her young friends are the sort of people who make up Berk, what a power they could be! What a world they could build, on the sort of strength that cooperates in the face of danger instead of pushing each other towards the water to buy off the sharks.

Eret doesn't want to look back at the person he became under Drago's control, next to their creativity and their stubbornness, the way they just don't give up, and the sort of dogged protectiveness that brought Stoick and his Vikings and Eret's friends out here into the middle of nowhere to do what they could.

"Hey," he opens his mouth to say, meaning to ask his crew if they might consider setting a new course and finding something else to do than hunt dragons, in the wide open future that's suddenly been set before them, but the words die on his tongue. What if they think he's crazy? What if they say no? Or what if some of them say no, and some of them say yes, and he ends up tearing their crew apart over this? The crew is the only real family some of them have.

They're not the only family Eret has, but they're his favorite one.

Maybe later.

"Never mind," Eret says instead, in response to the inquiring looks he gets. "It's not important. I'll tell you later. Just – give me a minute, okay? Go help out the Vikings, will you? You should know how to release some of those traps by now without getting caught in them yourselves. Go on. You idiots!" he calls after them as they go, making them laugh and Rorvik shout "Nine!" back at him.

The fighting does seem to be over, he sees as he turns away from the people and looks back at the island. More dragons than he's ever seen in one place occupy every perch and free space, licking at wounds and looking warily at each other. Even Eret can't put names to all of them. But they're not what he needs to see.

He can name the hulking great thing looming unmoving over the churned-up battlefield, swaying slightly and moaning in gasps like the halting breath of someone dying. It's no longer screaming fit to shatter ice, but it's still as much courage as Eret can muster up to step towards it. And yet he can't take his eyes off it. He knows what it _is_ , but he never really thought that Bewilderbeasts existed. They were only legends, surely. Nothing was that big, and the rumor about them being able to devour the minds of lesser dragons and direct them like puppets _had_ to be a campfire tale invented to scare people. Eret himself had shivered himself to sleep at least once at the idea of dragons lurching about like sleepwalkers, clumsy and unstoppable.

It hadn't helped that he'd been told the old chestnut about not waking sleepwalkers in case their souls never returned to their bodies or, in his grandmother's version of the tale, their legs fell off. Imagining dragons falling to pieces or exploding into smithereens at the command of a dragon the size of a mountain had kept him awake in half-delighted terror.

No one he knows has ever seen one. No one he knows has even _heard_ of anyone who has seen one.

And today he has seen two! More than that, he can think now, he has seen them fight, actually witnessed the legendary kings of dragons battling for dominance.

Still, he never would have been able to approach _two_ of them. One is much, much more than enough, and only the fact that it seems in no mood to fight anymore lets Eret get anywhere close.

The victorious king, the larger, bluish-white Bewilderbeast, is pacing across its island, raising its feet almost delicately and setting them down carefully between its subjects. As Eret watches, it wades into the ocean without seeming to notice the difference between water and air. The remaining ships – not all of them look seaworthy anymore – rock uneasily, but the king dragon ignores them completely, blowing fog against the water, which immediately stiffens and snaps into ice. Tiny icebergs snap off against its ice-white scales as it lowers itself into the newly frozen ocean.

Eret's curse is almost a prayer – to what, he does not know – as he stares at the remaining one, Drago's dark challenger. Who could have known that the man was keeping something like _that_ as a secret weapon!

"No wonder no one ever ran from Drago and got away," Eret mutters grimly to no one at all. He can easily imagine an ocean leviathan like that reducing a fleeing ship to rubble, chasing it down and blasting it with ice or throwing fire-breathing followers against the poor craft.

It takes half a step forward, too-small wings spreading out. They fold again almost immediately, but not before Eret has seen light through holes torn through the membrane and never healed. Turning its head from side to side, the tips of its tusks trail in the sand, digging long channels that go nowhere and crisscross each other like scars, and the chains locked to it rattle with its movements like the clacking of bones. It stops only for a moment, sides heaving, before another moan rumbles through the air. It never looks up, and Eret cannot see its eyes.

Beyond it, the other Bewilderbeast emerges from the water after its brief dip. Ice crackles around the victorious king, clinging to its scales and making it look even more like an avalanche come to impossible life.

A little bit of long afternoon sunlight breaks through the clouds as it does, striking reflections off the ice and making it shiver and flash. The king dragon paces directly to the breach through the ice and stone it had shattered its way through to get to its enemy, and as it draws in a breath, Eret catches a glimpse of green, shimmering through the gap like the northern lights.

He shudders, and looks elsewhere. Whatever is hidden away in the land beyond that barrier, Eret doesn't want to know anything about it. He doesn't put his head into beehives, and he doesn't walk into dragon nests.

And there is something unearthly about it, like there's another world waiting just out of sight, where the impossible happens and the unnatural finds a home. A world where beasts out of legend can wield powers he didn't think existed. A world where children can grow up to become dragons and dragons scheme like men.

Eret doesn't need to look too closely to be sure that this place beyond the edge of any map is a world where demons come to die.

The scarred dark-grey Bewilderbeast is crying over Drago as if the man were someone worth mourning, but the relief that rushes through Eret feels like the flight he's gotten a taste of on the backs of various dragons ever since he and the Vikings escaped that shipboard arena. The air rushes around him, and the sky opens like the lid of a crate he didn't know he'd been locked into, and he's hurtling blindly and out of control, but he's _free_.

Finally, truly free.

No more looking over his shoulder, scraping up quotas, working in the ice and the wastelands, dreading the day Drago's war fleet appeared on the horizon. No more trying to plan against the possibility – the likelihood – that Drago would someday demand more than Eret would be able to surrender, knowing that in the end, the warlord would take what he wanted.

That's it, Eret decides then. He's truly done with dragon trapping. If the world is big enough to contain dragons out of stories and dragons in human form and Vikings who talk to dragons like they're much-beloved pets, then it's big enough to contain something else that he – and anyone else who comes with him – can do.

Maybe his friends will put up with him if he promises to take them somewhere warm.

The silence in between low moans stretches on too long, as Eret decides this, and he looks up to see Drago's Bewilderbeast with its head raised at last. But its shoulders are slumped, its spirit clearly broken. It stands resigned and listless.

"Poor stupid beastie," Eret says to it, although he may as well be talking to the dark heap of Drago's cast-aside cloak for all the response he expects. "You're better off without him. He would have enslaved or slaughtered every dragon in the world if he could. He would have killed you too, after you'd served your purpose."

It's not going to hear him – Eret can't be more to it than a mouse squeaking at its feet, and even if it does hear the noises he's making, surely it won't understand.

Eret nearly jumps out of his skin, then, when it looks at him.

"What?" he says, for lack of any actual thought. "What do you want?"

It puts its head on one side, very slightly. Its eyes turn downward to look at the body at its feet, but it looks away quickly, as if the sight is more painful than it can bear. And it looks back at Eret. Waiting.

Waiting for someone to tell it what to do.

Of course Eret is tempted. He's always boasted that he can wrangle any dragon – what a triumph, to capture a Bewilderbeast! Who else could say –?

Drago could, he answers himself.

Just like that, Eret doesn't want the lost dragon anymore.

"No," he tells it. "No. You'll have to find your own way too."

Those bloodshot blue eyes close briefly, as if the great beast had winced in pain, and in a lurching, clumsy shamble, the Bewilderbeast turns its back on the two men on the shore, one dead and one living.

And it walks away.

It walks into the ocean alone. Eret can see its wake for a little way after its body disappears under the water, cutting a long line into the waves, but even that fades soon enough.

The king dragon's path seems to be in quite the opposite direction from the ships straggling off towards the horizon. They're sticking together for now, the ones that are still afloat – and not on fire or inhabited solely by dragons – and those that have passed inspection by Astrid and her dragon-riders. But they don't much resemble the war fleet that sailed to this island bristling with weapons and ready to conquer. It will be a very long time before they're in any sort of shape to do anything but survive the ocean and get their crews to shore, hopefully somewhere far from here.

Now it's over, Eret thinks.

Now he's free.

* * *

Only the knowledge that he could stop an entirely unnecessary battle between his people and Drago's from starting again had been enough to turn Stoick's feet from running to the huddled pile of dragon curled up tightly in the shadow of a broken stone. He'd been fighting his way back to his people through the battlefield, keeping an eye out for missiles thrown by those contraptions on the shore as much as for the dragons overhead. And then that enormous slate-grey behemoth had screamed.

Stoick can handle dragons, in the normal course of things. But seeing something big enough to overshadow the sky turn towards him, as if looking for him, had been more than he wanted to deal with. It had been a relief when it had looked past him entirely. It had been a shock when he'd realized _what_ it was looking for.

And then he had seen Toothless crouched just beyond, nuzzling and shivering over the small figure pressed against his chest, and it hadn't been hard to guess what had happened.

He'd wanted to go to them, but something had held him back, and a moment later Hiccup had climbed to Toothless' shoulders and they'd stumbled away. They hadn't gotten far before collapsing to the ground. The dragon had wrapped his front paws around Hiccup in a genuine embrace, holding him close, and the boy had turned his back on the world and refused to acknowledge anything else. Stoick's cries of their names, the keening wails of the dark behemoth hovering nearby, the eerie silence of almost every other dragon in sight as they turned to stare at the victor of the fight between giants – they seemed to see and hear nothing of it.

With war threatening to break out again a little way down the shore, Stoick had walked away, trying not to feel rejected and shut out of their world all over again.

At least Valka's red-gold thief, the dragon that seems to think that _it_ is their father, that had taken Valka and kept her forever, had been similarly ignored, Stoick had consoled himself bitterly. The thieving dragon had landed nearby and fluttered over them, pacing back and forth and nosing at them, but the tangled-together pair hadn't moved.

And if part of him had understood _exactly_ how it felt, Stoick had buried that thought under an ever-growing stack of everything else he needs to think about first.

Confronting Drago's soldiers had blown a stiff breeze through some of the haze of battle, and Stoick feels his head clear as he gives orders and scowls blackly at the defeated invaders and brings some sort of order to a world he at least understands. These are people, so he can talk to them. These are fighters who have lost their leader, so they want someone to be in charge. His people look to him to make the world make sense, so he keeps his voice steady and shows them what they need to see.

And yet part of him looks past the men shuffling about in the sand and trying to understand that the keel has just fallen off their world, and Stoick looks at _this_ world.

This, he realizes, is his sons' home. So this was _Valka's_ home, once.

Stoick does not believe in ghosts. If the dead could return to wail over things left unfinished, words left unsaid, the people they loved left behind, then Berk would be packed with them. He would expect to see everyone he's ever lost, everyone he let die because he couldn't end the war or keep them fed or pull them from the raging sea. He would not be able to move, or to live, for spirits.

If the dead could return to reach the living, Valka would have come back to him to tell him that his son still lived, that his son needed him. But in all the years he mourned for her, all the years he wished for just one more sight of her face, she never returned.

He will remember this place forever, he knows. It's small comfort, to be able to imagine just a little more clearly the life she must have lived after he lost her, but at least now he has a foundation to build his dreams on. A world of ice, and of giants, and of dragons as bright as fallen leaves and more varied than flowers.

But this – as it is, smashed and broken and destroyed – can't be what it should be.

There are no ghosts, but Stoick can feel her presence. As battered as this place is, scorched and shattered and with humans walking where they are clearly unwelcome, he can almost see her beside him, snorting with disgust over the mess that people who can't stop fighting have made of her home.

She would have walked across this shore where he stands. She would have looked up at that mountain with its spurs of storm-blasted ice, so deep that it has colors of its own, shimmering greens and iridescent blues and flashing white as a few trickling rays of sun catch against it. She would have looked out over the ocean, in a time when there were no ships sidling away in defeat, she and their son the only humans for leagues. She would have spoken to these dragons, and they would have answered her in their own dragonish ways.

It really does feel like a different world. A place beyond humans.

"Are we going home now, chief?" one of his Vikings breaks into his thoughts.

"Soon," he answers her. "Once this lot are well on their way."

"And the dragons?"

"The dragons will deal with the dragons," Stoick says, feeling the truth of it in his bones.

But he can't keep his mind on the remains of Drago's human army. Gobber has things well under control, it seems. The dragon hunters mob around their captain and then start pitching in to help release captive dragons from the traps and nets set up across the shore. Astrid seems to have forged her crew of brats into a sort of madcap aerial assault squad. So the moment he gets a chance, Stoick ducks away, drawn inexorably back to the dragons he wants to call his sons.

They're not where he left them, but the crowd of dragons has started to disperse, and the chief surprises several into flight as he walks past, making the shoreline a lot easier to search. Even the great giants leave the battlefield. Drago's creature falls silent and retreats into the sea. The victorious white dragon chief seals the breach in the wall of ice, breathing it out like winter given flesh, before submerging itself offshore. It doesn't reappear, but Stoick doubts that it's gone far.

Many of the more ordinary-sized dragons remain grounded, though, and it's among them, in a hollow amidst the rubble, that he finds Hiccup.

His son is crouched near one of the fallen dragons, petting its head and warbling softly to it as it whimpers. The sand beneath it is stained dark, and as Stoick watches, it struggles to get to its feet and fails.

Flitting about next to it, Hiccup urges it to try again, but a second effort only makes it cry out in pain. When the dragon-boy scrambles to its side and digs frantically at the sand, his hands come away bloody.

A moment later, Toothless lands by Hiccup's side, holding something in his mouth carefully. The black dragon offers it to him, but Hiccup waves it away, still trying to get to something hidden beneath the dragon – the source of the blood, Stoick guesses, and the wound that's causing it such pain.

"Let me help," says Stoick, stepping out into view.

Toothless startles at the sound of his voice, whipping around. The wounded dragon flinches, visibly frightened. Its eyes roll, and its paws churn, and its sides heave.

Well, what did he expect? Stoick curses himself. Men in armor and furs carrying weapons attacked their home, and here he is looking no different from any of them.

But Hiccup brushes his too-long hair out of his eyes, leaving fresh streaks across his face, and stares at the Viking chief. He looks exhausted, bone-weary and heart-weary, tired and frightened and hurting, and Stoick remembers that his son has seen his home besieged today, has fought to defend it, has _killed_ to defend it.

"Please," Stoick tries to soften his voice. He holds out his empty hands. "It's all right."

When his son turns away from him, he feels his heart sink all over again. Hiccup sets a hand on the dragon's side gently, trilling to it, and it answers him in a panting sort of croak.

Stoick doesn't understand their language, but he tries his best to guess.

The dragon is scared. It's hurting and now it's scared of him. And for all that, it raises its head and nudges at Hiccup, pushing him back and away from Stoick. Like it's protecting _him._

Hiccup won't go. He ducks his head and rests his face against the dragon's, crooning soft sounds, reassuring it.

 _It's okay_ , Stoick imagines him saying, _trust me, I'm trying to help…_

And then Hiccup looks away from it, looks past Toothless, who is standing guard between them and Stoick, and gestures to Stoick a very clear _come here._

It's a very tentative Stoick that approaches a dragon he doesn't know, one that's hurt and scared and ready to bite despite Hiccup's attempts at placating and distracting it. Is he telling it that _Stoick_ is trying to help? the chief wonders, and hopes that he is. Carefully, he sets his shoulder to the dragon's, gathering his strength, and heaves.

It gets to its feet only for a second, scrambling at the sand beneath it to get away from him as much as to stand, and as soon as Stoick steps away rather than be crushed beneath its weight, it falls again. But between their efforts, the wounded creature has managed to roll over to its other side, revealing a long gash already crusted with blood-caked sand.

As the chief steps away, Toothless pushes past Stoick almost close enough to touch, dropping the object he's been holding into Hiccup's outstretched hands. Stoick watches, ignored, as Toothless takes over talking to the wounded dragon, and Hiccup untangles a length of thin sinewy twine and sets to work. He brushes away sand with a handful of snow and even licks at the blood crusting the wound before carefully, meticulously threading a needle and starting to stitch the injury closed.

He pauses for only a second, and it has nothing to do with setting stitches, which is more than the boy's own father can say. Like many warriors, Stoick will inflict and bear injuries readily, but seeing them sewn up is more than he's comfortable with. Hiccup seems quite unfazed by it, though.

Still, he looks up at the chief, and deliberately nods as if in thanks.

"Always, son," says Stoick, and he'd never know there was ice around him for the warmth filling him inside.

Most dragons seem content to lick at their wounds, but word must get around, because other dragons make their way to the hollow, making their way past Stoick carefully and eyeing him suspiciously. None that make it there are so badly wounded as the one that lies panting and being fussed over by a pack of smaller ones that settle down beside it and purr. One licks at the jagged line of stitches. Toothless chases down another that gets hold of the loose end of the abandoned ball of twine and starts chewing on it absentmindedly, the black dragon growling and smacking the newcomer's nose with a paw until it lets go.

Stoick finds a place close enough to the dragons that he can keep an eye on his sons, but far enough away to oversee the departure of the last of Drago's soldiers. That's where Astrid finds him, that Nadder of hers circling once and then setting down not two paces away from Stoick.

The blue-dappled dragon nudges at him, chirping as if expecting to be petted, and he can't help but oblige.

"How's he doing?" Astrid asks as she dismounts from the dragon's saddle, nodding at the activity as the dragons and Hiccup – as all the dragons, Stoick corrects himself – find their bearings and patch each other up.

"He let me help," says Stoick. That says it all, he thinks.

He doesn't miss the soft smile on her face, although he lets her think that he does. Astrid has more compassion in her than she likes to show people, he knows. She just knows when to turn it off and _lead_ , and how to tell the difference between when people need to be gentled and when they need to be kicked hard.

She takes something from one of Stormfly's saddlebags, offering it to him. "I found these," she says.

Stoick knows what they are immediately, even though he's never seen them far from their owner – the gauntlets with their wickedly sharp dragon claws, the ones Hiccup never seems to stop wearing. The leather of them is worn dark and shiny and smooth from long use, the claws set firmly into the fingertips, and while they're made to fit human hands, they don't look human at all.

"Drago took them from him…" she starts, then trails off. "I'll tell you about it later. But I think…these should come from you, chief."

"Thank you," he says simply, and she starts to step away.

"Wait," Stoick stops her before she can get far.

"Chief?"

"Don't –" His voice catches in his throat, because they aren't words he wants to say. He says them anyway. "Don't let them set up camp. Get them ready to sail. We aren't – we aren't staying."

He wants to. He wants to stay here and walk in Valka's footsteps. He wants to see the place she made a life for herself, the strange realm their children inhabit.

But the fresh ice shimmering from the mountainside is a message written as clear as a rune stone, closing him out.

This is no place for Vikings.

"I'll get them moving," Astrid says. She doesn't ask if he's sure. She doesn't protest. She looks over his shoulder only for a moment – when Stoick glances back to follow her gaze, Toothless has settled down in the scuffed-up earth, curled up with his back to them, but he's watching them, as if he's eavesdropping on their conversation.

Astrid waves at him.

Toothless tips his head on one side, just a little. The broad tip of his tail flips up once. He drops his nose into his shadow, and a moment later Hiccup peeks out from the curve of the dragon's body.

After a moment's hesitation, Hiccup waves back, a clumsy but recognizable imitation, before ducking behind Toothless again.

"You should go to him," says Astrid, matter-of-factly. "Tell him 'bye' from me, if he'll listen. He knows that one." And she and Stormfly depart, making the quick flight over to the regrouping Vikings to get them organized before they can get into trouble. Vikings, after all, can get into trouble in empty rooms, much less an island full of on-edge wild dragons that were fighting for their lives not long ago.

It's still hard to meet Toothless' gaze, but not because the black dragon is glaring at Stoick for daring to breathe in his direction or speak to his dragon-boy companion. Instead, Stoick feels like he's being assessed and criticized, as if Toothless might be awarding him _points._ Always before, the black dragon has glanced away rather than stare Stoick down, baring his teeth and shuffling his paws and hissing defensively. But more than ever, Stoick can see the intelligence in Toothless' eyes as the Viking chief approaches him.

Having seen Toothless in battle, Stoick has no doubt how Night Furies got their reputation for being the most uncannily dangerous dragon Vikings have ever encountered. If he were a man, Stoick thinks suddenly, what a warrior Toothless would be!

The thought nearly makes him stumble, imagining the dragon as a human twin to the human son he never got to meet. It's almost as outrageous as the idea that a human boy could be a dragon in all but body, and yet part of Stoick's mind tries to build that young man the way he's tried to imagine what Hiccup would be like if he'd grown up on Berk.

Toothless would be taller, and dark-haired, with the same slender build as his human mother and Hiccup, and the same green eyes, lanky and fierce and funny and clever and daring and probably quite unmanageable – and they'd still be as inseparable as they are now, Stoick is quite sure.

 _It's not about bodies,_ something whispers to him, _it's about –_ but then the wisp of understanding is driven from his mind by the sight of his slightly more human son, sitting with his back to Toothless' side and his legs drawn up against his chest as if he's trying to curl into a ball and disappear.

Hiccup's hands are bloody to the wrists with the work he's been doing, trying to keep his dragon friends alive, and as Stoick flinches, his son raises them to his face and licks at them. He spits away the blood and grimaces at the taste, but he is determined to get those hands clean.

Toothless hums to him, almost inaudibly, and nudges him with one paw, wrapping it around him as if trying to hug him. Hiccup sighs and leans back against his shoulder, and the dragon's tongue comes out to all but swallow his hands whole.

Stoick wants to run to him. He wants to take his son's hands and wash the blood from them, to tell him that he did the right thing. That he did what needed doing, that he put down a monster –

"– and I don't care," he finds himself saying, under their baffled gaze as if they're too tired to be wary of him anymore, "I don't care what you have to do to survive. But survive. Live. Live for everyone who loves you both. Live for your mother's memory. Live because you are different –"

He knows they don't understand him, but he chokes on his words anyway, because it rips the heart out of him and lays it bare before their incomprehensible scrutiny to say them. It hurts like digging an arrowhead out of a wound, when the only thing to do is push the barb through and snap it away.

"– but you are amazing, the both of you –"

But he can't, he admits. He can't force them to be something they're not. No amount of imagining the son that never was and the child Valka must have seen, to be the Night Fury's mother as well, will make them his and his alone. Part of them will always belong here, beyond the edge of the world in a realm beyond humans, wild and unfathomable and untouchable.

"– so here –" Stoick crouches down to their eye level and holds out the clawed gloves. He can only offer Hiccup what his son wants most. To be what he believes he is, and for those around him to accept that.

And let them be.

"– these are yours."

It's like magic. The shadows clouding Hiccup's eyes disappear as his son lights up, lips parting around an unspoken cry. He uncoils from his defensive posture at once, looking at the dragon-clawed gloves as if they're a lifeline. He finds his voice again in a liquid tumble of chattering and crooning interspersed with small yips of delight as he reaches out for them. Beside him, Toothless' ear-flaps perk up, and the end of his broad-finned tail waves, the dragon's eyes too fixed on the gauntlets in Stoick's hands.

Stoick holds very still as Hiccup takes them directly from his hands without immediately recoiling. He tugs them onto his hands at once, curling the claws in towards his palms and splaying them out just like someone whose hand has fallen asleep under some weight, like they're coming back to life and that life is spreading through the restored dragon-boy.

 _Look!_ Stoick can almost hear Hiccup saying as the boy – but with that light in his eyes again, he no longer looks like a child – tumbles back to Toothless, holding his "claws" up to the dragon's nose to be inspected. The Night Fury sniffs at them, chirruping joyfully in his own right, and scrambles to his feet so that they can swirl around each other in a brief celebration. They're quickly exhausted from even the momentary exertion, slumping to the ground again, but there is the shade of a grin on both of their faces.

Hiccup hugs the gloves to his heart, wrapping himself around them and making a strange sound that almost resembles a purr.

The Viking chief thinks that he's been forgotten, but as he moves to rise, Hiccup looks up at him. His son licks his lips tentatively, jaw working.

"T-an ku," Hiccup says.

But as his father staggers and catches himself against a stone, Hiccup looks past him, and grief spills into his eyes. The Viking chieftain follows his gaze to the smoldering wreckage of weaponry and death staining the frozen shore, the dark bloodstains, the shattered stone and blackened ice, the unmoving bodies – all the damage that has been done to his home because of the hatred of a madman.

The calls of dragons echo through the sky, no longer screaming in battle-madness and fear, but crying out to each other, crying out for each other, and the two of them, black dragon and dragon-feral, both raise their heads to listen.

They don't tell him to go, but Stoick knows that he doesn't belong here. Their home and the family they have here are calling to them; they are needed here.

This is a place for dragons, and he will never belong here. And Hiccup does – both his sons do, as they fly away from him.

And he will have to accept that.

"Astrid says bye," he says, long after they've gone.

* * *

Astrid watches the death of Drago's flagship from a Stormfly pillow, leaning against her friend like the dragon is a living, self-heated bed. For a little while, at least, she doesn't have to be in charge of anything.

They managed to set off from the leviathan's island before it truly got dark, the long summer day finally drawing in around them. Getting the flagship out here, over the horizon from the island and into the deep waters where no one will ever find its remains, was a cooperative effort in the most frustrating way.

If Astrid never again has to coordinate such an operation, it will be too soon. It had involved two ships with two crews, both of them grouching about being put to oars; her squad of Berk dragon-riders; _and_ a scrappy handful of apparent volunteers from among the wild dragons. The dragons had descended on the chains that Gobber, with the help of Fishlegs' Gronkles, had attached to the hulking ironclad ship, and pulled on their own time and in several different directions.

There were plenty of chains to go around, and the wild dragons had seemed to take some well-deserved delight in being able to drop the chains at a whim.

The wild ones were perhaps less help than they thought they were being.

Watching a ship sink is rarely a pleasant sight. Ships are a lot of work to make, and sinking one is a dreadful waste, but Astrid is happy to make an exception for the ironclad flagship. Between them, the Vikings from Berk and Eret's dragon trappers had stripped it of just about everything useful, and their two ships are riding a lot lower in the water. Out of the corner of her eye, as she watches the ship founder and take on water through the holes Snotlout and the twins had had such _fun_ blasting in it, Astrid can see Fishlegs buried in the books and maps and scrolls he'd claimed as his portion of the plunder. His Gronkles' paws act as paperweights to keep them from the sea air.

The ship takes on water quickly, drowning beneath the waves and taking the body of its commander with it.

There's no fire for Drago Bludvist – no funeral rites, no words. He disappears from the world along with his ship, and when the last of the bubbles have burst and the only remaining traces are the ripples, Astrid feels like the world is a bit brighter without those shadows cast across it, even though it's getting on towards evening.

Across the water, as the two ships tack about and find the wind, she overhears a shout of "Gerroutofit!" and muffles a giggle.

Eret and his crew have decided to sail alongside the Vikings' ship for a while. Eret had asked, a bit sheepishly, if it was all right with the Berkians if he and his people came back to Berk too. Just to resupply, he'd said. Just to get their bearings, and decide what they're going to do now.

"But I think we're going to be seeing more of them, don't you, girl?" she comments to Stormfly.

Stormfly's considered opinion is a chuckle and a nudge at Astrid's hand to be petted more. Scratching at the Nadder's nose, Astrid adds, "At least until Ruffnut drives Eret absolutely insane. It wasn't you who took her over there, was it?"

Barf and Belch are asleep sprawled across the deck, in the most inconvenient way possible. Even when Vikings trip over their necks and kick their tails out of the way, they can't be persuaded to move, or even wake up beyond an eyelid or two lifting disinterestedly. So it can't be them enabling Ruffnut's reign of terror on the other ship.

"Which I suppose I don't mind too much. You guys are part of the tribe now, though. They're going to have to understand that. But I guess we could use people who have some idea of how to deal with troublemaking dragons, as long as no one gets hurt."

She imagines Stormfly saying _Oh?_ with a sleepy whistle.

"Yeah, and I'll deal with the troublemaking humans, I know. But I'm getting better at dragons. I think I understand you most of the time now."

Stormfly says _pet me!_ and Astrid obliges. She croons _I'm happy_.

"See, I understood that."

She thinks about the ice mountain island they've left to its dragons, somewhere over the horizon. It was swarming with what must have been thousands of them, like an anthill someone had thrown a rock into, which isn't that far from the truth now that she thinks of it. But anthills are annoyingly stubborn. Walk away for a week, and it'll be built right back up again.

Astrid wonders what will happen to the slaves that they'd liberated, and the warriors she'll probably dream about in odd moments. That blank madness in their eyes –!

She wonders where Drago's leviathan went. Eret calls it a Bewilderbeast. Fishlegs actually squeaked and flipped frantically through his _Book of Dragons_ to write that down alongside his notes from last year. She wonders what it will do, without its master.

What if it turns around and seeks some sort of revenge? Astrid worries.

"We'll deal with that then, I suppose," she tells Stormfly. "We've got to work on our formation flying, girl. I mean, _we're_ great at it. The others…maybe we can have some fun with that. I wonder who else might like to learn to fly?"

Stormfly says _I'm listening_ – or at least that's the way Astrid translates it. Stormfly is a good listener, as long as Astrid is petting her, or if there might be chicken.

"And if it goes after –" Astrid glances around, checks whether or not Stoick is in earshot, and lowers her voice anyway. "– Hiccup and Toothless, then I guess they know where to find us if they need us."

Right where they're going to continue to be. Take that, Drago Bludvist.

"I hope they know by now that we're on their side."

She remembers the last sight she'd had of both of them, as the ships made their way out to sea. Through one of the spyglasses, she'd been able to make out two dark figures, perched on a freshly regrown spire of ice, watching the ships go among a dizzying array of fluttering, jostling dragons likewise keeping an eye on the activities of the last humans left in their territory.

They'd been no more than silhouettes, and then a single dark shape against the sky.

But she'd felt their eyes on her until the dragon nest was only a suggestion of cloud on the horizon.

"I think we've got some work to do when we get home," she tells Stormfly. She scratches behind one of the Nadder's spines. "Thanks for being my friend, okay?"

There must be some note of unease in her voice, because Stormfly rolls an eye at her and warbles curiously.

"That could have been me," Astrid says. She can talk to Stormfly because the Nadder doesn't really understand and doesn't judge her. Stormfly just listens. But it's been eating at her ever since she stood on the deck of Drago's ship and lied to his face, because those lies had been based on truth. She walked close to Drago's point of view, not long ago. She'd seen dragons as nothing more than enemies or weapons, not understanding.

"I thought the only way to fight dragons would be to make you fight them for us. If I'd done that…"

She knows now that she would have tarnished like pot metal, warping and fracturing and poisoning the world she'd been fighting to save, if she'd convinced herself that dragons were only useful for the way they could serve humans.

"He missed something," says Astrid softly. "He missed this." _This_ is Stormfly perched at her back, warm and alive and friendly. _This_ is that dragons are more than the things they can do: the weight they can move, the flying, the warmth, the fire, even the protectiveness.

 _This_ is that once you can see yourself reflected in dragon eyes, Astrid has learned, once you understand that there's a person in there, not quite like you but close enough to reach out to…

…you never see the world the same way again, and it's a far more wonderful world this way.

An outburst of shouting turns out to be Snotlout and Fearsome dive-bombing the hunters' ship to "rescue" Ruffnut, who protests being snatched with howls and dire insults. Tuffnut laughs at her as she threatens to bite off Fearsome's claws and run his rider through with them. Gobber threatens to tie all of them to the stern of the ship upside down, Monstrous Nightmare included. Stoick roars at all of them to shut up.

Stormfly nudges her head under Astrid's arm, or at least as much of it as she can, and clicks for attention.

"Yeah, I know," Astrid says fondly, chuckling back. It's _comparatively_ wonderful.

She's looking forward to getting home. Berk may be small, and out of the way, and it may only be one island. But they've got a really good idea starting to find its feet. Next to Drago's vision of the future, it looks like the best idea in the world.

Astrid doesn't think in terms of changing the world. She just wants to protect what her people are making of their home.

It's a village, not a nest. They're still Vikings. Just…with new friends.

And Astrid will protect what's hers against anyone who tries to smash it down.

"What is that?" Stoick snaps, and she and Stormfly both look around again.

The chief is standing over Fishlegs, who's cradling his _Book of Dragons_ to his chest and looking guilty. Fishlegs never has learned to keep a straight face, Astrid muses, leaning across Stormfly's back and resting her chin on one hand to watch.

"…nothing?" he ventures. "Er…the _Book of Dragons_ , of course. I mean, there were so many new kinds of dragons on that island, and –"

"Give me that!" Stoick growls, snatching the book from his hands.

"Whoops," Astrid mutters to Stormfly, grinning wryly. She can guess what Stoick has spotted about the _Book_ that's struck sparks off his temper.

The chief is visibly fuming, and it's not just the sunset off their starboard beam turning his face red. "Is this some kind of a joke?"

Not too long ago, Fishlegs would have melted into a puddle at that tone in the chief's voice, even if it was directed at someone else. But that was before he faced down Drago Bludvist alongside Astrid and the rest of them, before he helped to start a dragon revolution in the darkness of a slave ship, before he flew on dragonback through the thick of a war. Stoick must seem a little less scary by comparison.

"No, chief," he musters up his courage and says, steadily. "Not a joke."

There is a very, very long silence. Snotlout, ever ready to see someone else get yelled at, especially if that person is Fishlegs, comes over to see what's going on, accompanied by the twins only a step behind. Ruffnut and Tuffnut probably would have arrived first, but Ruffnut is making a spirited attempt at stealing her brother's helmet so that she can sneak back over to Eret's ship in disguise as Tuffnut.

Stoick doesn't move, brooding over the pages in his hands. He stays there long enough for Gobber to stump across the deck and try to look over his shoulder before admitting he's just not tall enough and settling for looking at the book upside down instead.

"Hah!" the smith says. "I kinda like it."

When the chief speaks, it's in a low rumble that gives away none of his thoughts. "Wildfire. Huh."

Fishlegs opens his mouth to make some excuse. Astrid snaps her fingers to get his attention, glares at him, and shakes her head, silencing him.

"…It's a good name," Stoick says at last.

Astrid decides that she'd better step in, and scrambles over Stormfly's back to move to the chief's side. "We'll see them again, chief," she promises him.

"I know," says Stoick, curtly, as if the matter is not in question.

The second time it's a sigh. "I know."

* * *

Stoick doesn't believe in ghosts. But he has faith in the living.

* * *

 _Excerpt from_ The Book of Dragons, revised and updated edition, with new content and illustrations:

 **Wildfire**

A unique form of dragon: only a single example exists. Born a human child named Hiccup, but raised in a dragon nest. Highly intelligent, but behavior almost entirely dragon-like. Symbiotic bond with Night Fury called Toothless (also shown. See also **Night Fury** ).

Capable of using tools and weapons; exhibits creativity, reasoning, kindness, mercy. Fiercely protective of those he loves. Speaks mostly as dragons do, but knows some human speech; also communicates with drawings. Perceives himself as a dragon (as shown). Most unamenable to being told otherwise.

Friendly, when approached carefully.

Do not underestimate.

 _[Two pages. Illustrations show 1) a man dressed to resemble a dragon, crouched with one clawed hand raised, turning as if to respond to a sound, and 2) a Night Fury accompanied by the above-described "Wildfire".]_

* * *

 _To be concluded_.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Throughout the writing of this story, _Stormfall_ has been acquiring a soundtrack just as _Nightfall_ has its own playlist. A link to this soundtrack will be posted with the next – and last – chapter, but I'm asking for suggestions. Do you know a song you think suits any theme or any scene in this story? The "Theme for _Stormfall_ " is "Open Up the Sky" by Sam Tsui, but what else do you think should make the list? Hope to hear from you – and thanks for sticking with me throughout _Stormfall_!


	21. Chapter 21

_**Stormfall,**_ **Part Twenty-One**

A roar wakes Toothless from his drowsing, but he does not leap and startle at it. They are home and safe, he knows deep inside where his heart is warm against his fires, and the nest is full of roaring always. Instead he flicks his ear-flaps back and grumbles _unhappy don't-like no no no stupid don't-want stupid loud no_. He sighs and hides his nose and eyes under a foreleg, shifting in their nest to coil just a bit more tightly around Hiccup-beloved-one who is still sleeping at his side.

 _Stupid!_ Toothless snorts from under his paw. The caves that are their home have never been entirely quiet. Dragons are loud, calling to each other and quarreling and playing together and singing to themselves and their hatchlings and their friends. But there are so many new flock-mates now, and there is snarling and roaring and screaming and yowling always.

The argument that woke him is only the closest to their nest. There is a scent of fish in the air that Toothless can smell even though his paw is on his nose, and he can hear that many of the New Ones are fighting each other over it, each snatching and snapping for the food.

It smells good. Toothless rumbles deep inside, but small movements against his side silence him and hold him still.

Hiccup stirs but does not wake, and his claws scratch against Toothless' outstretched wing. He has claws always now, and he sleeps only lightly, mewling as if hunted and afraid in dreams. He wakes often with soft cries, burrowing against Toothless' scales as if trying to dig into the bigger dragon's body like a cave before falling again into restless sleep.

To have him close again, always and always and never again to be far away and taken, is a _rightness_ so great Toothless has no sounds for it. It is as right as the heat of heart-fires. When they were torn apart those fires inside went out drowned and frozen, and Toothless tasted _death_ like emptiness and sickness and the cold that kills. Toothless tastes _life_ now in the scent that is both of them and the soft breaths and warmth against his side.

They will never be apart again, Toothless declares in the bone-deep purr that rumbles through them both.

A scream of _mine mine no you go-away this mine!_ shatters their just-for-them peace, and Toothless bares his fangs at the quarreling dragons in the half-darkness of the cave. They should let his Hiccup-beloved sleep!

But further away there are other arguments breaking out. Toothless recognizes the voice of Sun Chaser as she yowls a protest, her claws scratching against stone. She yelps _no no no this mine yes this mine here no you go go-away go now!_ She does not want to move from her perching place. All around her, others join in, objecting to being pushed away, and angry voices answer them until someone snarls _fight!_ and Toothless hears paws striking against scales.

The sounds of the nest are sullen and unhappy as they are in the darkest endless nights of worst and coldest winter. Sometimes then there is no more sleeping left to do, but there is nowhere to fly and nothing to eat and nowhere to go that does not already have another dragon resting in it. Then every sound seems a challenge, and every flock-mate a rival for the not-enough food that can be found. Even when winter-storms that freeze and kill roar around the outside of the nest and thrash and tear at the ocean, the dragons of the nest long sometimes to run and fly, but there is nowhere to go and the bitter winter traps them.

There is very much sleeping in winter, because waking becomes pacing and yowling and fights over nothing at all if there are no games to play and if the sharp blinding snows that bury the open spaces of the meadow and close up the tunnels out of the caves do not end.

It is not winter yet, but inside it is like those worst winters now.

 _Down!_ a voice Toothless does not know snarls, and when the black dragon tracks the sounds he sees a New One with scars across his scales stomping his paws, spreading his wings and making himself big to loom over Chases Birds, who coils herself to spring and hisses _defiance!_ back with all her legs braced.

They stare each other down until the New One decides that she is not worth fighting with, turning away with _disdain_ and _sulking_ and shivers of _want-to-pounce_ in his body, kicking back at her as if there was dirt beneath his paws to toss up. Snorting, he takes off and flies away, out of the caves, but flying quickly as if he means to go very far. Victorious but unhappy, Chases Birds lashes her tail and warbles _outrage_ , scratching at the rock beneath her uneasily.

Dragons cannot count. But Toothless knows deep within, as he listens to and scents for and watches his family's home, that there are too many dragons in the nest now. Hunger bites at him where he is empty inside. Everywhere in the nest that is good to fish from has been stalked across and pounced at and dug through and dived for. Toothless has heard many flock-mates returning from hunting with their voices grumbling like stomachs, so it must be so beyond the nest as well. Every perch seems crowded, and even he and Hiccup have had to hiss and snarl and raise their claws and show their fangs to defend their own home-nest behind the stone teeth that is theirs alone, that has always been theirs!

The smallest of signals catches his attention, and Toothless forgets about everything else. Against his side, Hiccup makes no sound. He does not stretch and chirp with waking-up sounds, or rub his scales against Toothless' own to share their scents and pet and scratch and reassure. But they are part of each other – they are together-always, they are two-who-are-one – and Toothless can sense that the other half of himself is awake too.

 _You?_ Toothless chirrs, raising his wing slightly and turning to look. He purrs _happy me happy yes yes good love-you up up you here yes good_ , shaking with the relief that strikes at him, to _know_ that Hiccup will be there. Now that Hiccup is awake maybe now they can fly away to the open air outside and away from the arguing and squabbling all around! Maybe today everything will be as it should be again!

Hiccup yawns, splaying his claws out, and then settles again at Toothless' side. He reaches out to scratch lightly at the bigger dragon's jaw, but makes no attempt to get up.

 _C'mon_ , Toothless urges him, snatching at the outstretched paw and tugging gently. _C'mon c'mon c'mon…_

They have so many things to do, and Hiccup will do none of them! Toothless does not understand.

His scales itch with the absence of the flying-with harness he has worn for so long, and no scratching against stone or pawing at them or even the touch of Hiccup's paws will make his scales stop twitching and searching for it. It had never been unwelcome; he _rejoiced_ at wearing it. It was part of him. It was part of _them._ But it tore and broke and fell away, and Toothless cannot make it be again alone. His paws are not clever the way Hiccup's are; he cannot tie things together or imagine that they should go one way and not another.

But when Toothless found a coil of leather cord, dropped and forgotten, that smelled a bit like the flying-with had, and raced to show Hiccup, and tossed it over his beloved-companion so that it fell all around him to tell him what it should do, Hiccup did not want to play with it and make a new flying-with from it. Instead he startled and shoved it to the ground, growling and spitting, and stalked away.

He did not go _far._ _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ cannot bear to be out of sight of each other for long. It frightens them now to not have each other close enough to touch even for moments. But he would not listen when Toothless whimpered _please?_ and wondered _why?_

Without the flying-with, how are they to fly together quick and wild and dangerous, racing through the sky and pouncing at new places like a toy to be batted around? How are they to fly everywhere together?

Toothless is very worried. Hiccup is hurting inside and pretending that he is not – even to Toothless! But Toothless knows him best of all, and he cannot be fooled by affectionate purrs and quick movements and much running around among the dragons of their flock and chattering and playing with their friends.

 _You!_ he says now, padding after Hiccup as they rise and stretch and leave their nest. He snaps up a burnt stick in his jaws, dropping it at his companion's side. He tries to remember if he has seen Hiccup drawing at all, and cannot. His lines and shapes and shadows are always being rubbed to ashes and scuffed away by the paws and scales and flames and splashes of passing dragons, but Hiccup delights in putting them back again, over and over again like chasing a tail that is too quick to be caught. There are no drawings, now.

 _This yes you now yes you please yes!_

Hiccup bristles at it, raising his claws and sidling away and turning his eyes elsewhere. _No_ , he says in movements, _resentment_ hissing from him like steam. _Stop!_ he growls.

Toothless growls back, leaping around him and blocking his steps as Hiccup tries to escape from a small stick. Crouching as if to hunt, Toothless whistles _why why confusion puzzlement worry confusion you no why?_

Hiccup turns his back on the black dragon entirely and collapses to the ground in a sulk, hunching his shoulders up defensively. _Don't-want_ , he spits. But when Toothless whines, ear-flaps going down and wings drooping in unhappiness, he relents, turning back to the other half of himself and scampering close to nuzzle against Toothless' jaw and roll, baring his stomach and throat and begging _forgive? sorry sorry love-you yes yes good always sorry love-you_.

Toothless is not angry with him. He just does not understand.

He wants things to be as they were, but they are two-who-are-one, _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ together, and Toothless cannot make things right alone.

It is a joy and a goodness to have his beloved-one on his shoulders again as they wander through the caves. They sneak low and careful around the New Ones quarreling over fish and pounce to steal the food from under their noses. Then they must run very quickly with their jaws full before the New Ones can snap at them, their chirps of _laughing us clever laughing yes yes fish this fish ours yes yes laughing laughing_ stifled quiet. They hide in a cave all over ice and dripping until the fish are all eaten and their theft forgotten, splashing in the small puddles as the warmth of their fires inside melt the ice and the snow that shelters there.

They perch beside Golden Bright who laughs with them at the bickering of a tangle of two-heads cousin/s who stand close together and argue and snap at each other until their heads are all mixed up and not even the arguing cousin/s can tell who is who or even what they are arguing about. They have to step backwards carefully, swaying back and forth, and their skulls knock together so much that the argument is forgotten.

Very Very Very Blue almost knocks them over even though he is still hatchling-small, leaping at them to purr and brush against them and thrum _gratitude_ and _happy happy home yes yes good safe yes happy you good brave you yes yes!_

There are many New Ones in the nest now, but it is good that their friends that the terrible ships caught are back home with them too.

 _Cloudjumper!_ Hiccup says happily, sitting up tall and humming _anticipation_. Their guardian's perch is too far up to climb to, but Hiccup is again on Toothless' shoulders where he should be, and Toothless carries him up in an easy flight.

Sometimes Cloudjumper pretends that they are too silly to talk to or look at, but now the many-winged dragon who was their mother's mate greets them with a purr, his tail coming up and wrapping around them to pull them close.

Hiccup tumbles from Toothless' shoulders to scuttle among the cover of Cloudjumper's wings, rising partway to his back feet to brush his shoulders against the scales of their guardian's belly where he crouches against the stone. He scratches at itchy spots he knows, chattering greetings, as Toothless rears up briefly to nudge his skull against Cloudjumper's jaw.

 _Worry,_ Toothless says very quietly, ear-flaps going down as he cringes and looks to Hiccup, who has pulled a fold of Cloudjumper's wing over himself and hidden inside it. _Sad he sad worry love fear love love don't-know you? you? help please help yes please please need…_

He has never known Hiccup to act this way, refusing to do things that he likes, that Toothless _knows_ he likes, that have always been as much a part of him as his voice. It makes no sense. It is not right.

He will not _fly!_

 _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ are wanderers. They have always been wanderers, ever since Toothless grew big enough to carry his Hiccup _-soul-love_ long enough to reach the floating ice and then sea stacks and then other islands and then further and further still. They go everywhere. But Hiccup will not leave the nest anymore! He will not even fly to the peaks of the mountain and the spurs of ice protecting their home. He will not look at the horizon.

And Toothless will not go without him.

He wonders, guiltily even at the thought, if it might be a thing of humans. Toothless never thinks of Hiccup as human – Hiccup is a dragon, they are dragons together, that is _true_ – but he knows that his beloved one was human once.

Toothless does not understand humans. They are very strange. They do things and then they do different things. They say one thing with their voices and another thing with their bodies and then they do something else entirely. They roar like enemies and then they decide they want to be friends. They try to tear _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ apart and then they say with their bodies and their voices that it is good that the dragon-pair are two-who-are-one. They shout very loud to tell dragons not to fight their enemies and then they appear from nowhere and fight to protect dragons. And that is just the _St-t-t-t-t-kk_ who has done all those things!

But Cloudjumper was their mother's mate, and it disturbs Toothless not at all to know that their mother was human.

He remembers the _being_ of her more than her shape. He remembers being picked up in her paws and the sound of her voice a bit, quick and flowing and chattering with many sounds. He remembers that she was happy when he curled up against her warmth and that she did not snap and hiss like nesting mothers do when he crawled into her nest to be with the hatchling who was _me too._ He remembers the touch of her paw on his nose and the scent of it that meant _mother_. He remembers running behind her to Cloudjumper, and the sounds that she made for laughing that meant she was happy to be with them all.

If it is a thing of humans, perhaps Cloudjumper will know.

 _Hurting_ , says Cloudjumper, shoulders drooping. He sighs _sad_ , but his signals say _confusion_ and _regret_ and _don't-know_ in the way his eyes will not look at Toothless and instead stare at stone.

 _Help_ , Toothless pleads softly.

Cloudjumper shrugs, the movement twitching his wings. Hiccup rolls out from under them, yelping in mock indignation and swiping at Cloudjumper with his claws.

The many-winged dragon huffs and raises his head and looks past him, ignoring the little dragon pointedly.

Hiccup laughs and rises to his back feet, reaching up and pawing at Cloudjumper's faraway nose. _Love-you_ , he croons, placating, until Cloudjumper relaxes again and decides it is all right a bit to be petted. The young dragon nuzzles against their guardian, chirruping _affection_ and _trust_ and _together_ to him.

 _That_ , Cloudjumper indicates. He taps Hiccup with his nose, but his eyes speak to Toothless.

Toothless can do that. He can love his dearest-one always and always and forever.

Out in the open air of the meadow, they race across the ground, leaping from stone to stone and slipping on the lichen, dodging between the many dragons that perch there and stepping more carefully a bit across the edges of the ocean lake where the king rests, eyes closed. He is not sleeping, and his presence echoes always inside their skulls like the rush of ocean waves beyond the stone of the nest, but he does not command with great force.

The endless squabbles in the nest are small arguments, not great threats, even if there is more snarling, and more claws turned in to slash and tear, and more fire blown, and more storming away angry. Some of the New Ones do not understand that they cannot _always_ fight. But the dragons that have been here always will not be bullied by them.

This confuses the New Ones who were fierce ones very much. Some of them have gone away out of the nest and not come back.

The king is patient with them as they jostle and settle into the new way of things and learn each other.

Hatchlings flit across the water in a chattering crowd and prance across the king's back and his face and his mane, and they slip with back paws flailing from his tusks until they remember their wings. Some of them make tiny splashes from their falling and some fly faster, leaving their clutch-mates to learn to leap from the water and fly again.

 _Yes yes yes you!_ they squeak and whistle, descending on the dragon-pair, ready to play more. _Play yes you play us c'mon yes yes yes c'mon us play!_

Hiccup laughs, jaw wide and tongue lolling, and springs at the nearest one. She shrieks with delight, staggering and waving her wings as he catches the horn of her nose and tumbles her to the ground. Her clutch-mates pounce, some of them batting at Hiccup and others defending him until they forget and leap at him in excitement. Toothless springs at all of them, growling mock-fierce _mine mine mine mine!_ to pretend to drive them away from Hiccup, who freezes careful-still beneath the bigger dragon's paws and the shadow of his body, chuckling. The hatchlings find him in his hiding place at once, and they climb over Toothless and under him to chase Hiccup out to play with them more, chittering and calling, until the ones from the water fly over, dripping seawater everywhere.

 _You!_ one of them begs, pawing at Hiccup when they have tired themselves out. Panting hatchlings sprawl everywhere, all over each other, and the dragon-pair perched together, and the stones. One snaps at a flower, eating it whole, and tries to chew it like a fish. _You you show!_ He spreads his small wings and dances around, whistling, with the last petal of it blowing from his jaws.

His clutch-mates echo him, asking for a story.

Hiccup shrugs in the way of dragons, waving his claws. _What?_

 _Fighting!_ another hatchling demands, showing her own claws and growling in imitation, leaping at one of the hatchling-flock.

The hatchlings do not hear Hiccup gasp as if struck, even his breath whimpering, but Toothless senses him freeze inside.

 _No_ , he refuses, turning away to hide against Toothless' chest, and, louder, _No!_ when they insist.

The little ones sulk, whining and protesting, and race away to find a dragon who will tell them about fighting.

 _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ do not follow. _Fear_ hums from Hiccup not in sounds but in stillness. He crouches under Toothless' nose breathing slow and silent, and he stares at the stone beneath his paws as if it will crack and shiver away from him if he does not watch it carefully.

 _Safe here yes you safe here me here yes yes together us us good here here love-you safe yes_ , Toothless chirrs to him, nudging at him and purring _reassurance_ and _love love love,_ but _worry_ snaps into his spine and the tip of his tail and the spring in his legs.

Carefully, deliberately, Hiccup curls up as small as he can and hides his face behind his forelegs. _Here_ , he answers. His claws open and slash at all things. _No!_ he snarls, rejecting it all.

Toothless tips his head curiously, not understanding.

 _C'mon_ , Hiccup gestures when he rises to all his paws again, and his steps as he moves back towards the darkness of the caves are slow and listless and resigned.

Above them in the sky, the cries of flock-mates taking off and flying away to hunt and play in the open air echo, and as Toothless watches, baffled, Hiccup looks up to follow them out of habit, but then he flinches as if struck and looks down again, keeping his eyes on only the stone.

Toothless' ear-flaps droop, and his jaw opens in an unspoken wail of _confusion_ and _disbelief_ – Hiccup is afraid of the _sky!_

It cannot be. Toothless will not allow it to be.

At once the black dragon is on his feet and racing to follow, seething and shivering with horror for him. In a great leap he soars over his companion and lands skidding and spinning on the stones between the smaller dragon and the caves.

 _No!_ he snarls, bristling and spreading his wings. _No!_

Hiccup recoils and bares his teeth, but his body says _want-to-run_ and not _want-to-fight_.

 _You!_ Toothless demands. _You now here now yes you now!_

Toothless distantly remembers times when Hiccup was small enough for the black dragon to pick up in his jaws and carry away even as his little companion struggled, yowling and thrashing and swiping awkwardly at Toothless' scales. He is too big to carry that way now, but he is not too big to pounce on and pin down and nudge at until he is perched sprawling and scrabbling and yelping on Toothless' shoulders.

 _No no no no!_ Hiccup yowls as Toothless spreads his wings and leaps.

He does not fly as quickly as he wants to, not without the security of the flying-with binding them together, but he flies dancing and wild, pausing and racing and twisting in the air to keep Hiccup clinging to his scales. His beloved-one has wings of his own, and while he does not fly quickly, he is not afraid to fall. And he would not fall far, with their own flock-family surrounding them.

The black dragon ignores his other half as Hiccup shrieks insults and protests and wails _distress_. The sounds tear at his heart deep inside, and echoing wails choke his throat, but Toothless swallows his own sounds down and flies up and up and up until they are far above the meadow. The bright sun greets them with flashing and sparking from the waves of the ocean, and the long shadows of the mountain-peaks lose their grip and cannot touch them.

Everything is different here and new. Fangs of ice that the dragon-pair played across and hid among before are shattered and melted and gone now. The old fangs were a place where Hiccup learned to use his wings, Toothless remembers. He remembers leaping across the high spurs and to lower ones, spreading his wings to glide and leading the way while Hiccup followed in his tracks.

He fell again and again and again, and Toothless dived to catch him, until once when they crashed together to the ground of the meadow and someone – Toothless does not remember who – shrieked at them to play somewhere else.

Hiccup had rested his jaw on his paws and scowled, wings trailing, and yelped and hissed with thinking.

After that they had gone higher, up and up and up, and up in the empty sky Hiccup had leapt from Toothless' shoulders and they had fallen together until the wind caught Hiccup's wings and they flew, together side-by-side and _wonderful_.

There is new ice now. Its edges are sharp and its shadows are unfamiliar, and its sides are still smooth with no places where claws have gouged into it to make it rough and good to cling to.

Even the stone among the ice is different now, tossed and shoved and fallen to new places by the battle between the kings, but Toothless lands on a hidden place among the ice where it is good to perch and look out over the ocean.

 _No!_ Hiccup protests, twisting away from the endless open ocean and the distant sky and the far horizon. But sharp waves of ice surround the stone, and their peaks are too high for him to leap to.

 _Don't-want_ , he spits at Toothless, turning his back on the sky and hunching his shoulders.

Growling, Toothless swats at him, knocking him to the ground. The bigger dragon pins him there with a single paw, looming over him and staring him down.

 _Look!_ Toothless commands him, snapping at the paw Hiccup raises to push his nose away. Catching Hiccup by that foreleg, Toothless pulls at him, sitting down heavily with a _whump!_ until his beloved-one must look at the world.

 _Confusion,_ he yelps softly, as Hiccup's shoulders tense at the sight of it. _Why why why no flying good yes yes yes good flying you me we us together-flying good good good! That_ – he gestures to the horizon with a flick of his nose – _go you me us yes._

Out there is where they belong. They always come home, but they have always been wanderers too.

He whistles the signal for _hiding-game_ with _don't-understand_ and _scorn_ in his sounds and his body, and _you you why why why?_

 _No hiding,_ Hiccup spits back.

Toothless yowls _liar!_ indignantly. Dragons understand lies. They can pretend things that are not so, but it is hateful to do so when one they love can be harmed by it. Hiccup's lies are hurting him, Toothless believes, and he is hiding, he is!

He loves his dearest-one too much to let him hurt _himself_ with such lies.

 _Hate!_ Hiccup screams at last, gesturing to the horizon with his claws spread wide as if to tear it all apart and let it fall from his jaws bloody and forgotten like pieces of a kill when dragons have hunted very well and can eat no more, and instead play with what remains.

Toothless cringes, even more baffled than before. _No,_ he whines a protest. He spreads his wings, pacing in the small space of the perch. Released, Hiccup does not try to escape. He glares sullenly at the ocean and will not meet Toothless' eyes.

 _Liar you!_ Toothless can only declare. _Us together us flying us far yes go yes flying flying together-flying look look look us go yes us brave yes good!_

Hiccup wails, cowering, and in his shoulders and his eyes and his scent Toothless senses a thought that stops him between steps, one paw still up and his wings caught frozen as they beat, because the thought that Hiccup has been hiding is _guilt_ , deep and crushing and tearing. It overflows from him like water in a pond that many dragons have waded into.

 _What?_ Toothless whistles _disbelief_.

His beloved-one whimpers, swaying as if he is not sure whether he wants to be angry at Toothless for bringing him here to stare down the horizon or if he wants to press close and be comforted. Toothless does not doubt. He steps delicately around Hiccup's smaller form and coils around him, nudging his face against his heart's-love companion.

 _Us we go_ , Hiccup whistles, and in cries and gestures and glances says that their enemy caught them, that the _wrongness_ and madness in their enemy tracked them here, and then… _Look,_ Hiccup says, gesturing at the scars still trodden into the frozen shoreline and the scorches across the sides of the mountain and the broken ships sunken in the shallow ocean. Parts of their bones still show above the water, and there are dragons perching on them and basking in the sun and fishing from them.

 _No,_ Toothless refuses. He noses at Hiccup, licking at his face and fur in small swipes at the salt of oceans there, trying to push him away from the _guilt_ that shivers through his body. It is not their fault!

Hiccup snorts at him. _That_ , he waves a paw at the horizon, _no-more_ , and his voice says _determined_ and _hurting_.

Toothless thinks he understands now. In their travels they have encountered and escaped from many dangers. They have trespassed in the dens of dragon-cousins and run from _pfikingr_ and raided ships and crept around in human nests when all the _pfikingr_ are sleeping. They have been caught in terrible winter-storms that struck too soon before the dragon-pair could fly home. There were rocks that fell all around before they could fly away, once, that struck them both and hurt so. They have hunted traps and argued with humans and defied the _sickbadwrongthing_ that ate dragons and was a very great wrongness.

But those things have never come here.

Home was the last safe place.

Hiccup is afraid to leave it again, because now he knows that those dangers might follow them home.

Toothless cannot argue with that. But he does not want to stay hiding in their nest always! It will hurt them to do so, he thinks. Hiccup will be restless, with nowhere else to go and no new games to play, caught between their need to wander and his fear. They will _both_ be unhappy. They go together, or not at all.

It is a big thought, and Toothless cannot figure out how to persuade Hiccup of it, even if some of the tension has bled away from his shoulders and his dearest one is curled against Toothless' chest instead. His claws open and close anxiously, ready to strike and slash against all the monsters he cannot stop seeing out there.

 _This?_ Toothless asks, nipping at one of Hiccup's claws that he does not take off anymore, not to draw and not to make things and not even to pet and scratch and groom their many kin-cousins and friends. One of his fangs snags in it, tugging it away, and Hiccup thrashes in panic, pulling the claws back and biting at it with his own small fangs, fixing it in place again.

 _No no no no no!_ he yelps. When Toothless looks puzzled, he presses them close against his chest and snarls _don't-like_.

Toothless sighs, rumbling _patience_ and _reassurance_ and _love. Love-you_ , he purrs. _You mine we us._

He knows Hiccup does not like to think that he might be different, that it hurts him, but Toothless knows that it does not _matter_.

 _Don't-want_ , Hiccup gestures, flicking one paw as if to brush something away. _Paws no no out-there no-more!_

He is done, he tries to persuade Toothless, whimpering. He will not be different anymore, not from anyone. He will change the way he looks every way he can, and then he will not do anything that others do not, and then he will be like them and they will be safe. He does not want to wander if only danger and enemies wait for them out there. He will not be different, and then no enemies will see him.

The black dragon will not be persuaded. Hiccup will not be _Hiccup_ if he does not do the things that make him unique among dragons!

Toothless wants him to draw shapes and tell stories and make things and heal wounds. He wants Hiccup to fix the places where his scale-skins are fraying away and make a new flying-with for them to fly together so that they can go very far and find _good_ things too. He wants Hiccup to not be afraid.

Rising to all his paws, Toothless paces around and around more, tail lashing, looking out over the world. He sees their flock-mates perched on the broken ships, leaping from them into the water and into the air. Spinning and diving in the sky, others of their family soar. Out towards the horizon, ripples in the ocean waves might be sea dragons – Toothless would like to go and see them, because sea dragons can be friendly sometimes, he knows now, remembering the lightning-noses ocean-cousins from what seems like long ago.

From everywhere there are the cries and calls of dragons, shrieking to each other about hunting and flying and the winds and the ocean and the playing of hatchlings and of warmth and comfort and friends and kin.

 _They flying there look_ , Toothless says slyly, pawing at Hiccup. If Hiccup is truly determined to do only what other dragons do – then _dragons fly!_

Reluctantly, Hiccup pads to the ledge and admits that their kin-cousins are flying, huffing indignantly as if it is a very great kindness to notice this.

 _C'mon_ … Toothless encourages him, dipping a shoulder to him and letting his tongue flash and loll in a dragon's smile. _Up you up c'mon please please go us go yes please!_

Flying always makes them feel better when they are sad. Flying will make Hiccup feel better now.

When Toothless leaps he does gently, catching the wind and letting it carry them _up up up_ from the mountain and out over the ocean. He spirals into the sea air as Hiccup settles himself in his accustomed place, holding tight and clinging to Toothless. In the wind there are scents of distant places and dragons close by, fires and the musk-scent of the nest that means home and ice sharp and shivering in his nose. It blows at him like the softest breath of the king, the breath that is only frost and not the ice that blasts and strikes and defends, lifting Toothless as if the ground beneath his paws was only ever a dream.

The sky – and the warmth on his shoulders – is the only true thing.

The ice is cool beneath him, hungry-cold lapping at the air, but far above the sun blazes, warming his wings and blinding his eyes. Even when he closes them, flying without sight for many beats of his wings and his heart, the sun is so bright he knows it always.

A nudge at his ribs from one of Hiccup's back paws is _almost_ a teasing scold, warning him that to wander blind is not a game for flying.

It is a game they have played before, though, teaching Hiccup to track sounds and follow scents until his eyes grew used to the darkness. Toothless remembers their flock-family playing with them, Quickest and Loud Feet and Fell From Ledge prowling through the grass of a field elsewhere while Hiccup shut his eyes very tight and followed their sounds, and Toothless with him for the fun of it, both of them cheating whenever no one was looking, and laughing together when they were caught.

Still, Toothless opens his eyes and flies more carefully. There are many more dragons in the sky, now.

But Hiccup does not signal again as Toothless banks against the wind and dips down towards the waves, skimming so close that the spray from the waves their flight kicks up stings his tongue and tastes of salt. Toothless feels his dearest-one sprawl against the back of his skull and press his face against the scales there, hiding still and not seeing the waves as they flash like many-many-many bright eyes.

The ocean dragons Toothless thinks he might have seen are gone when the black dragon and his rider reach the place where they were. Snorting only slightly in disappointment, Toothless beats his wings more strongly and takes them up, setting out.

Hiccup does not wail and demand to be taken home, but he does not join his voice to Toothless' as the bigger dragon purrs with joy at the feeling of _flight_ , of _together-flying_ again. His silence is grieving still, and despair, the silence of a dragon returning to its nest with its head low and its tail trailing. He does not lift his head to track the wind as it blows all around them, and his body does not relax into the bone-deep satisfaction of the stretching of wings used well.

Rumbling _frustration_ , Toothless veers and swerves and finds a new wind and a new path, flying alongside a trail of clouds like a stripe through the sky, refusing to give up. He knows a place where flying is _best!_

In time under the soaring sun that is too high to chase and catch, there is an island not their nest in the distance, and Toothless locks his wings into a steady glide towards it, listening always for the smallest signals from Hiccup- _soul-love_. So he knows Hiccup is not paying attention, or his beloved-one would know the trick at once. He would tense with it, and yelp with understanding.

But he stays silent and unseeing as Toothless soars, waiting for his trick to pounce on them both.

The blasting winds of the place with the updrafts swat at Toothless like a great splash into water, filling his wings and emptying his body of breath, even from very high up as they are, and as Hiccup snaps to attention and begins to yelp _realization_ and _surprise_ , Toothless beats his wings one last time, taking them just a bit higher –

– and twists in the air, rolling.

Without the flying-with binding them together, they cannot fly upside-down without falling, so Hiccup falls, tumbling and flailing, and Toothless falls with him, falls beside him – they fall _together_ – wings furled.

Shrieking in surprise and indignation and shock, Hiccup scrambles at the air, but there is no grip for his claws there. It is a long way to fall, and the updrafts catch only opened wings, and to hit the water _hurts_ , they know.

Stubbornly, Toothless refuses to spread his own wings, glaring a _challenge_ and a dare even as the air roars around them, surging upward but finding no wings to fill, and the water churns below.

But then Hiccup catches the edges of his wings and slips his claws through them, spreading himself out to catch the air instinctively, and Toothless screams _delight_ as his falling slows and flying begins again.

At once Toothless' wider wings snap out, twisting to turn and spin through the air, winding around his beloved-companion as Hiccup fights the updrafts, circling and climbing.

 _You!_ Hiccup screeches at him, teeth bared and eyes glaring, as Toothless banks around him, chuckling with his tongue lolling and eyes flaring. _Not funny!_ he yowls.

 _Can't-catch-me!_ Toothless dares him, coiling in the air and waving his tail, a tempting target to pounce for. _C'mon c'mon you you play yes laughing laughing you c'mon!_

Hiccup dives after him only to catch him and scold him for the trick, at first, angry at being thrown from his companion's back without warning when he wished only to be left alone to grieve – to _sulk_ , Toothless snorts at him, and Hiccup shrieks _not!_

But the world beyond the two of them fades to _not-important_ as they chase each other through the blasts of air, plunging past in quick close dives and Toothless using his stronger wings to go _up up up up up_ , he teases in passing. Hiccup snatches for the tip of one wing and manages to catch hold of it for only a moment, but long enough to pull the bigger dragon off balance and make _him_ flail to not fall as the updrafts tear past.

Toothless rolls in midair and snorts up at Hiccup where he hovers before turning his fall into a dive, plunging towards the water and soaring into a strong gust that tosses him far into the air – but not _quite_ as high as Hiccup, who folds his wings for just long enough to drop him into reach of Toothless' nose. He taps it with a single claw and twists away, tumbling to catch another wind that bats him out of reach of Toothless' attempt to swipe back at him.

So of course Toothless chases him.

So of course Hiccup _makes_ Toothless chase him, fleeing in quick tumbles and sharp turns. And by the time Toothless catches up to him after much veering and soaring and flying, flipping over and over in a roll and swatting out with his tail to knock Hiccup from his updraft and make him stumble in the air, the dragon-feral is laughing too.

And when Toothless misses his pounce, diving past Hiccup instead of into him, his partner catches the edge of the wind and lands on the black dragon's shoulders. And he settles there not limp and hiding and grieving, but ready and alert and with the joy of flight and flight together singing through them both.

* * *

Hiccup taps his claws against the stick tentatively, reaching out as if it might coil and strike and bite, the crumbling ash of it snapping out fangs and biting deep and quick like a snake that is not-kin. But it is only a stick, and sticks cannot bite.

Looming over him where they rest among the many tiny waterfalls that melt down from the ice soaring over the nest, Toothless hums _delight_ as Hiccup wraps his claws around it and sets it to the cool stone. They are far away from the welcoming darkness of the caves, as far away as they can go and still stay within the nest, where the green of the many small meadows perched among stones reaches up to brush against the ice and stretches down to the edge of the seawater lake where the king rests.

The dragon-feral wants to forget how badly it had hurt to be _seen_ by their enemies and to know that the lie he never wanted to tell had been believed. He wants to forget the scent in his nose and in his mind of the madness of the Knotted Man, snapping to bite, and the wounds torn through their shared self and the bodies of their flock-family and the body of their home, vulnerable and open.

Hiccup knows very well that Toothless is keeping him away from the caves, not letting him hide away in the shelter of them. He has wanted to sleep always and forget –

 _– except dreams that –_

– but Hiccup adores him for it even more so, _love_ humming between them like a grooming tongue rasping across his face and his fur and his scales as if he were the smallest of hatchlings. Toothless is the more sensible of the two of them, he knows, and the young dragon will listen to Toothless when he will listen to no one else.

He is trying to listen, now. With the panting exertion of chasing-flight digging its claws into his sides still, and the body-memory of many ups and downs and tumbles and spirals echoing in his bones and his skull, it is easier to be out in the sunlight and the open again as long as Toothless is here beside him. Even the thought of the _endless_ open beyond, and everything that might lurk in its shadows and distances, is easier to think of.

Toothless is warm and alive and _here_ beside him, _joy love you me we us us-together here yes good good good love_ humming in his breath and his heartbeat and his small sounds, and Hiccup knows he does not need to be afraid.

The stick makes only a rough mark like a scratch across the stone, but Hiccup cannot bring himself to take his claws away, even to draw better. More than ever, he wants them to melt into his clever paws and grow there. He is clumsier with them there, and his paws are not so clever, but he is more _right_ when he has claws.

If his paws were not so clever, he would not put them into dark places to snatch and grab and investigate, and then the dangerous things that live in hidden places would not leap out snarling and clawing at the trespass.

He and Toothless would get into so much less trouble, if his paws were like everyone else's.

But the sight of the dark ash against the stone reminds him that it is good to make shapes for others to see, and Toothless purrs louder and louder as his paws make the line a shadow. Carefully he makes the shadow a shape, the shape one of many, and all of them a picture of dragons flying together in the sky. He draws and imagines the shapes are _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ together, and Moss on Paws a bit although it does not look quite like her, and Licks Stones, and his clutch-mate Kicks in Dreams, and Spots-and-Speckles, and She Who Was Weary She, and Cloudjumper, and Lookout, and Tail Chaser.

Beneath them very great he draws their king, glancing up out of the side of his eyes to watch the king himself where he rests in the ocean lake and listens to the tangled-together sound of his nest and his flock.

And he hesitates, and then draws Flies-in-Storms with a figure on her shoulders, flying too, because Flies-in-Storms is a friend, and the _pfikingr_ she who is a friend to Flies-in-Storms is – though it is strange – their friend too.

The _St-t-t-t-t-kk_ does not fly, so Hiccup does not know where to draw him. But then the king does not fly, and he has drawn the king.

Hiccup puzzles about it, clicking _uncertainty_ , and scribbles a small heavy shape all over fur, safely away from the king, and not flying, but watching them maybe.

When the king's attention turns to them, both young dragons sense his presence at once, and the drawing is forgotten as their eyes lift toward the king of the nest as he wades into the shallows rolling away from the ledges and leaps and streams of the meadow.

 _Majesty_ , Hiccup crouches, obedient and content, and Toothless scrambles to his feet only to duck his head and his shoulders and fold his wings tight, eyes closing.

 _ **Affection**_ washes over them like the tide.

The king is pleased that the wounds in the hearts of his little wanderers are healing.

Hiccup does not try to hide his flinch – he cannot lie to the king who knows _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ inside. But he had not thought that others would see and know. Of course Toothless had known, but he does not like to think that the king had worried for them.

 _ **Calm**_ , the king bids them be, and the dragon-pair sit up and settle down again, close together and comfortable.

Leaning against Toothless' shoulder, pressed against his heartbeat where he is safest of all, Hiccup watches and waits. Toothless nuzzles him and purrs, and Hiccup rubs their faces together, humming soft sounds.

But the king thinks of _**Worry**_.

The king listens to all the sounds of the nest, and he hears the quarreling among the New Ones who were fierce ones and the New Ones whose scales and eyes were dulled and the dragons that have always been here and the ones who were slaves to the _sickbadwrongthing_ before. He hurts for the ones who were hurt and the ones that were lost, and this should be a safe place for them.

 _ **Breaking**_ , he sends.

He fears that the nest is like an egg with the grown-big hatchling trying to get out, kicking and tearing and shattering it from inside.

The king protects _them,_ but still Hiccup tries to whistle _reassurance_ to him, trembling at the sight of unease in the eyes of the great king and tasting his thoughts rolling like thunder.

Bright blue eyes as wide and deep as oceans pin them in place, and the king commands them.

 _ **Wanderers**_ , he knows them as.

 _ **Search**_ , he commands.

Against his back, Hiccup feels Toothless chirp _confusion_ , not understanding.

Thoughts of flying wash through them, their own memories sent back to them, of distant horizons and the nest at their back and far away, and new places always ahead, sights and tastes and knowing of –

 _ **Sending**_.

Hiccup can only wail in shock, and at once Toothless picks up his cry – the king is sending them _away!_

 _ **No**_ , the reply comes back quickly, heavy with _**Kindness**_.

He would never send them away. This is their home, and it has always been their home, and it always will be – they are welcome here always, they are loved, they belong!

 _Relief_ is a deep sigh like a single breath blowing through two bodies, gasped in by one throat and breathed out by another.

 _ **Where?**_ the king asks.

Where else, he asks them, is safe for dragons? Where else can dragons go?

 _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ have been to many places in their wanderings, and they can barely remember them all. But Hiccup thinks very hard, trying. Unconsciously, one paw reaches out for the forgotten drawing-stick, scratching with it at the stone as if to draw all the shapes hidden inside his eyes.

He remembers an island that was good for dragons but that was empty, where he and his Toothless- _heart_ hunted and rested and drew thoughts before they flew to pounce at ships and were caught and torn apart.

He knows that the Island of Dragons and Strange _Pfikingr_ is a better place for dragons now, that dragons live among the nests of humans but the humans do not mind so much as long as the dragons do not break things or start fights or steal food that humans want for their own, and sometimes the humans can be friends to dragons if the dragons are _very_ patient with humans who are stupid often.

There was a thick fog with very much rain in it that they did not fly into, only skimming past it and away, and beyond there were many islands. Some of them were trembling and restless under paws, and some of them were nests for dragons that snapped at _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ as stranger-intruders and drove them away, and there was a singing noise that _Tt-th-ss_ liked very much but _(click)-phuh_ did not like at all. They argued about it very much, but Hiccup won and they flew away.

But there were places that were good to perch on and good to rest and hunt and sleep and play in, and there were dragon-cousins there who were friendly when _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ whistled _no-threat_ and were friendly too.

He cannot tell which places Toothless is remembering. There are so _many_ , and – a bit of curiosity nibbles at him, waking up hungry from its hiding-away sleeping – probably many _more_.

 _ **Approval.**_

The king sees their remembering in their eyes turned up towards him. The weight of his thought is like curling up to sleep among many dragons, paws and tails and necks and jaws draped over them, secure and safe and warm.

 _ **Search**_ , he commands them.

They have always been wanderers, but now the king is sending them out like hunters. They will find places where dragons can go and be safe. They are good wanderers, because they know how to scent for danger and track it to its lair and decide whether to fight or to flee. They leap quickly and they fly swiftly and they fight fiercely, and they are clever.

 _ **Follow**_.

And others will follow them to new safe nests, if they lead others there.

Clicking to each other in a mixed-up tangle of _amazement_ and _confusion_ and _reluctance_ and _eagerness,_ the dragon-pair bat at and play with and chew on what they are being commanded to do. It is something they _can_ do, they know at once. It is what they have always done.

Hiccup still does not like the idea of dragons being sent away. They will be sad and afraid and lonely and lost again!

 _ **No**_ , the king promises. _**Choice**_.

They will go only if they want to. But the king believes that they will. They will go in search of food and nests and they will follow each other.

But dragons are kin always, no matter how far they wander, and this will always be a safe place for them to return home to.

 _Danger!_ Toothless cries, a soft alarm sound so that their flock-mates will not be afraid where there is no danger here. There is only danger dreamed of, the terrible things that Hiccup was hiding from, remembering, and the dangers they do not know about, the ones that hide to pounce.

Their kin-cousins will not be safe far away and alone out there, without the king close by to protect them!

The king thinks _**Resignation**_ , but he thinks _**Determination**_ too.

There are always dangers, he knows, and the dragon-pair know with him. He protects this place, but he cannot protect all the world.

Small dragons must protect each other, too.

 _ **Affection**_ , the king thinks to them. _**Approval**_ **.**

 _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ protect each other, he knows, and they do it very well.

The king's trust in them – and his rumble of _**Pride**_ – is like the safest of places and the strongest of purrs, and Hiccup and Toothless bask in his praise like the bright-burning sun. _**Praise**_ feels like being curled up together with the cold far away, safe and warm with stomachs full, humming _joy_ and _love_ and _laughter_ to each other, exhausted after a long day of excitement, and more to do tomorrow.

It feels like a horizon, and Hiccup remembers the joy of that endless sky as if it were the first breath after a deep dive.

There is no mockery or chattering laughter in the king's _**Amusement**_.

There is only encouragement, the feeling of wind under wings.

* * *

And now there are new flying-with cords woven around _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ , binding their bodies together just as their hearts are tied together so tight as a single self that they can never be torn apart. There is no enemy who can separate them inside, and if they try…the burned and broken traps were good to take apart for things for dragons to play with and for Hiccup to make new things from.

And now there is _laughter_ humming between them as Toothless beats his wings to catch a warm soaring thermal and hovers, waiting over the ocean as the sea breezes snap and tug and cuff at them. On his shoulders, Hiccup taps his claws against his partner-beloved's skull, teasing, and Toothless flicks an ear-flap back at him for his rider to catch and pet at.

And now there are many dragons taking off from the peaks of the nest hidden by the ice of their king and safe again within the mountain, and leaping from the mouths of many cave-tunnels, and springing up from the broken ships in the water that belong to _dragons_ now.

 _We go yes yes yes good anticipation excitement you here we go you me we us we fly!_ Toothless chatters, chirruping and twitching with his readiness to chase down the world and catch it like a bright fish or a soaring star.

Hiccup chuckles an answer, gesturing with his claws. _They yes they go c'mon dragon-kin us –_ he roars the flock-sound that is the sound for all of them, the sound of their family that is all of them always – _together go!_

They have been leaders before. They have had ideas about playing, or about hunting, or about tracking, or about raiding and stealing with sneaky paws and quick snaps, or about breaking traps and stealing dragons back from human cages. But now they lead at the command of the king, and his trust flies with them like a claiming-belonging-scent or colors splashed across them all.

And _Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss_ are trusted, and they are loved, and they have each other always, and that will be their safety even when they are far from home.

Hiccup turns away from the flock that will follow them for now to the empty island to make it full of dragons again, and looks out to the bright horizon. The sun has climbed out of the ocean and burned itself dry, and now it is soaring high again.

They will not catch the sun today.

Perhaps they can sneak up and pounce on it tomorrow.

He bares his fangs and tenses his claws as the flames from the sun flash from a new sharp-claw blade. They warm the leather of the flying-with that has not yet been battered old and worn and smooth, but will be soon once they have played with it much more. They shine from Toothless' dark scales as his beloved-one purrs with the joy of being together as they should be, in the sky and unafraid, and Hiccup smiles a dragon's smile as Toothless glances back at him and his eyes laugh _love-you!_

They can fight monsters, if they must, as long as they are together.

But they have _so_ many new places to be…

* * *

 _-end-_

* * *

 **Afterword/Note to Readers:**

"Okay, but Le'letha… _is this going to be a trilogy?"_

Here's the deal:

If, some Friday in 2018, the lights in the movie theater come up and I'm still in my seat crying my eyes out, I don't think I'll have the heart to write a third installment for this AU.

But, if the writers are merciful, I may walk out (as I did from the second movie) dancing and laughing and inspired, filled with new characters and settings and ideas and possibilities, delighted by the ways these people I love have developed and matured and grown all the while continuing to be wonderful.

If it's the second option, then this AU – "Nightfall" series, Wildfire Trilogy, whatever you think of it as – _will_ continue in 2018 with the third volume, probably called _Freefall_.

Fingers crossed.

…I have no idea what it's actually going to be about, but I can't pass up that title.

Until then, I've got some more short stories set in this universe to write (suggestions are welcome but not a commitment), and some sleep to catch up on, and a third season of "Race to the Edge" to anticipate.

Thank you, then, for reading _Stormfall_. If you enjoyed it at all – since you got this far – please let me know. I'm always wildly happy to talk about this universe and HTTYD in general, answer questions (awkward questions are fine), offer rationalizations, and field anything else you'd like to toss at me. This has been my life for the past two months – if you include _Nightfall,_ it's been my life for the past two _years._ It will probably _continue_ to be my life for at least the next two!

And as promised, the soundtrack I've been listening to while writing _Stormfall_ , plus some behind-the-scenes information, can be found at http semicolon doubleslash le-letha dot deviantart dot com slash journal slash HTTYD-Stormfall-Extras-604546188

Fair flight to you all.

 _Le'letha_


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